Union membership among nonprofit workers is growing, reflecting changes in the composition of organized labor in the United States. While unions have traditionally represented blue-collar and government workers, recent years have seen a rise in unionization efforts among staff at liberal nonprofit organizations.
The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU), Local 70 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees AFL-CIO (IFPTE), has been active since 1998. According to its tax documents, it received tax-exempt status in 2000. The NPEU began at the Economic Policy Institute and saw an increase in organizing activity around 2018. By early 2026, the union had expanded to represent staff at 49 nonprofit organizations, including prominent advocacy groups such as the Center for American Progress, Open Markets Institute, J Street, Brookings Institution, National Immigration Law Center, and Food and Water Watch.
Other unions are also organizing nonprofit employees. Staff from groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Lambda Legal, National Abortion Federation, and Jewish Voice for Peace have joined the Washington-Baltimore NewsGuild, which is part of the Communications Workers of America. The Sierra Club’s workforce forms a significant portion of the Progressive Workers Union’s membership. Community Solutions’ staff joined the Office and Professional Employees International Union.
One factor driving unionization among nonprofit workers is what some analysts call “status-income disequilibrium.” Many nonprofit employees are highly educated but receive relatively low pay compared to other professional fields. This imbalance can motivate staff to seek collective bargaining as a way to improve their working conditions.
According to Jackie Hurst, a bilingual administrative assistant at SPLC: “Our pay was not sustainable.” She described how her department was chronically understaffed and said she earned so little that she lived far from her workplace where housing was more affordable: “After taxes and other deductions… I took home just $1,100 for two weeks of work.”
Workplace issues extend beyond wages. Organizing campaigns often focus on diversity and inclusion within nonprofits. A report commissioned by Defenders of Wildlife highlighted concerns about workplace culture for BIPOC employees, noting experiences with “tokenism, microaggressions [and] cooption of ideas” as well as disproportionate responsibility for diversity work.
Mother Jones reported on these dynamics: “Now the organizations’ employees are turning to unions to change their workplaces from within, by fighting for higher wages and better benefits, and by forcing their organizations—whose leadership is predominantly white—to be more diverse and inclusive.”
Analysts suggest that unions see nonprofits as a potential source of new members amid declining traditional union membership in sectors like manufacturing. Nonprofit workers may be particularly open to unionization due to ideological alignment with labor causes as well as economic factors.
There are exceptions; some right-leaning or centrist nonprofits have not seen similar union activity among their staffs.
The trend indicates that organized labor’s reach now extends further into sectors once considered outside its core base.
