The IAM had the highest representation election win rate among the 10 largest U.S. unions in the first six months of 2014, winning over 90 percent of its elections, according to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) data analyzed by the Bloomberg Bureau of National Affairs. AFL-CIO affiliate unions as a whole won two-thirds of elections held in the same time frame.
IAM representation elections brought the union 1,358 new members in the first half of 2014, the third highest among U.S. unions. In all, over 25,000 workers voted to join a union in that time frame.
The Machinists Union has been especially successful in the South. In a pair of successful elections in April and June, the IAM added nearly 1,000 members employed by L3 at the Corpus Christi Army Depot in Texas. Over 1,000 workers at the Red River Army Depot, also in Texas, voted to join the IAM in October, though those workers are not included in these statistics since the election took place after the first six months of the year.
Unions as a whole conducted 18 more representation elections in the first half of 2014 than the same period in 2013. Over 69 percent of those elections were in favor of the union, compared with 65 percent in 2013.
In 2013, about 14.5 million Americans, or 11.3 percent of all wage and salary workers, were union members, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.