Capitol Hill staffers are pushing to unionize and now have the support of the majority of House Democrats, who signed a resolution in February supporting the effort. The logistics of running such a union, however, are presenting a hurdle for moving forward.
The Congressional Workers Union publicly launched in early 2022 after organizing for more than a year with the aim of helping staffers feel more protected at work. “While not all offices and committees face the same working conditions, we strongly believe that to better serve our constituents will require meaningful changes to improve retention, equity, diversity and inclusion on Capitol Hill,” the group said in a statement. The group pointed to a survey by the Congressional Progressive Staff Association that found that 91% of Hill staff wanted increased protections to safely speak up and voice concerns at work.
Reports of unfair and inequitable working conditions among Hill staff recently gained attention via a popular Instagram account, “Dear White Staffers,” which details anonymous staffers’ accounts of low pay, long hours and lack of diversity. “When I started, it was just an open secret that things were bad, but you just put your head down,” one former House staffer told Politico anonymously. “And I think there’s something happening right now with ‘Dear White Staffers’ — that it’s just generations of staffers who have trauma-bonded, and it’s all coming to light through this Instagram account. And it’s so cathartic, and it’s so bleak. And that open secret is just being obliterated.”
The momentum behind the Congressional Workers Union picked up speed when Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) introduced the House resolution days after the group publicly launched. The resolution stems back to the mid-1990s when Congress passed the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 to require Congress and other legislative branch entities to follow similar employment and workplace safety laws as the rest of the federal government. Under that law, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights would have to issue regulations that both the House and Senate would need to approve before any kind of labor organizing laws would go into effect. While the regulations were written in 1996, Congress did not initiate the process to approve them.
The 2022 resolution, however, would approve those regulations. “Congressional staff must enjoy the same fundamental rights of freedom of association at work, to organize and bargain collectively for better conditions, that all workers deserve,” Levin said in a statement. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate our values of believing in the collective voice and power of workers. We cannot stop fighting until every worker in the country can form a union, without interference, including our own employees, right here in the Congress of the United States.”
The resolution had 130 sponsors by the beginning of March. If it passes, it would still have to be renewed at the end of the current congressional session next January, when it is uncertain whether Democrats will still have control of the House.
The Senate would also have to pass its own resolution that would allow staffers in that chamber to unionize. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has voiced support for a union, stating via a spokesperson that she would offer her “full support” to staffers in their efforts to unionize. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also backed the effort, stating via a spokesperson that he “believes that hard-working Senate staff have the right to organize their workplace.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden also supports the effort to unionize.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), on the other hand, opposes the move and said in an interview with Punchbowl News that he doesn’t think it would be “productive for the government.”
Some lawmakers have pointed out the difficulties of formalizing a union among staff that work across several hundred offices. “It’s like there are 535 employers,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee. “I don’t know quite how that fits into any traditional union structure unless you have multiple unions.”
Blunt has not taken a position on the union effort. Whether the House resolution will pass remains to be seen, and if it does pass, more work will be needed to figure out the logistics of unionizing staff across several hundred congressional offices.
For more background, see the March 2009 issue of Congressional Digest on “Unionizing Workers.”
