In January 2023, NLRB union election filings continued their recent climb. But you must look beyond the raw numbers to see this reality. As has been the case for the past year, union organizing at Starbucks stores still complicates the analysis.

January 2023 Union Election Petitions

Overall, the National Labor Relations Board received 150 “RC” petitions seeking union representation in January 2023. While that is much lower than the 169 filed last January, the decrease is all attributable to the maturation of the Starbucks unionization campaign.

In January 2022, there were 35 petitions seeking elections involving Starbucks stores. This year that number has declined to only 7–an unsurprising result, given the volume of stores that already had elections last year.

Setting aside the Starbucks petitions, the 143 other union elections sought this January represent a 6% increase over the 134 non-Starbucks election petitions in January 2022.

With or without the Starbucks cases, the January 2023 RC filings nearly match the 149 petitions from January 2020 and significantly exceed the 114 January filings in both 2018 and 2019, as shown in the graph below.

FY 2023 to Date

The NLRB’s current fiscal year began on October 1, 2022. In the first four months of FY ’23, there were 582 union election petitions filed that didn’t involve Starbucks–a 13.5% increase from the same “post-COVID” period in FY ’22 and a nearly 5% increase from the same pre-COVID period in FY ’20.

California and Texas Lead the Way

Most U.S. states see very few NLRB union election petitions filed in a single month. California and New York–large, relatively labor-friendly states–typically account for among the most RC petitions, as they did in January 2023. But it’s more notable that Texas continues to experience an upward trend in union elections.

California

With 15 non-Starbucks RC filings, California saw a 36% year-over-year increase from 11 petitions in January 2022. But 15 is well below the 23 January California RC petitions in 2020 and only back to the January average between 2018-2019.

Texas

Despite being the second-largest U.S. state by both land and population, Texas usually only sees a few RC petitions each month. Lately, that seems to be changing. Even excluding Starbucks, eight union election petitions were filed in Texas in January 2023. By comparison, only one RC petition was filed in the state in both January 2021 and January 2022, and 5 each in the month in 2019 and 2020.

With small sample sizes, it’s hard to reach dramatic conclusions about a potential trend toward increased union organizing in Texas. However, we can go back a little further for similar results. Between October and December 2022 (the first quarter of the NLRB’s 2023 fiscal year), 17 union election petitions (not involving Starbucks) were filed in Texas. Thus, there have been 25 such filings in the current NLRB fiscal year. During the same period in the previous fiscal years, there were only eight (FY ’22), nine (FY ’21), and 14 (FY ’20) union representation cases in Texas.

Georgia

Another southern state with an upward trend, Georgia had three non-Starbucks RC filings in January 2023. It had four total union election petitions filed in the previous five Januarys combined. There have now been 10 cases in Georgia this fiscal year, nearly as many as the 11 total union elections sought in Georgia between October and January over the previous three years.

Other Notable Gainers

Starbucks-adjusted January RC filings are also meaningfully up in:

• D.C.: 6 in 2023 vs. 3 in 2022 and 6 total from 2018-2021
• Illinois: 14 in 2023 vs. 11 in 2022 and no more than 9 between 2018-2021
• Massachusetts: 6 in 2023 vs. 3 or 4 in each of the previous five years
• Nevada: 7 in 2023 vs. 4 in 2022 and no more than 5 since 2018
• North Carolina: 3 in 2023 vs. 3 total from 2018-2022
• Washington: 9 in 2023 vs. 5 in 2022 and no more than 6 since 2018

Notably Down: New York & New Jersey

New York dropped from 16 to 12 January union election petitions compared to last year, matching the state’s five-year January low set in COVID-afflicted 2021.

New Jersey is another heavily unionized state that experienced a decrease in union election petitions in January 2023. Only five RC petitions were filed in the Garden State that month versus nine in both January 2022 and January 2020. (Like New York, New Jersey also experienced a large dropoff in such filings in January 2021 (only 1 case), presumably related to COVID-19 effects.)

FY 2023 Union Representation Election Results

Unions typically win about 70% of the representation elections held. Many petitions filed in Q1 FY 2023, including all of those filed in January, have not yet resulted in elections. Among those that have, unions have won about 76% of the time. Unions only won 71% of the elections held in cases filed in Q1 FY 2022. However, it may be too early to conclude that unions are winning elections more often since the data are incomplete.

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