The North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor – the largest labor organization in Northeast Ohio, with 80,000 members – has launched a website designed to be a one-stop destination for people looking for a union job or apprenticeship and for workers wanting to learn how to unionize.
Unionize Cleveland at unionizecle.org launched this week. The North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor wants to get this message out:
“Union members are typically paid more and have better benefits than workers who are not in a union,” said Brian Pearson, who heads the federation.
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Union membership in Ohio is higher than the national average and has, for the most part, remained steady for a decade. In 2024, 12.1% of workers in the state belonged to unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state saw a spike in union membership in 2022, with Ohio ranking third in the U.S. for growth.
Members of the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor want union membership to increase. The federation won a $50,000 grant from the national AFL-CIO to help set up the website, Pearson said.
Union members make more than nonunion workers, according to federal data . The typical weekly earnings of a full-time union member nationally in 2024 were $1,337. Nonunion workers only made $1,138, or 85% of what their union counterparts made.
Union membership has plummeted since the 1980s. Just under 10% of workers in the United States belonged to unions in 2024, according to BLS figures. In 1983, more than 20% of workers belonged to unions.
The reasons for the decline include the loss of jobs in heavily unionized blue-collar sectors such as manufacturing. State legislation has also made it harder to organize. This includes right–to-work laws that make joining a union and paying dues voluntary. Organized labor and advocates view these laws as anti-union because they can undermine the size and financial strength of unions.
Ohio is not a right-to-work state. However, in the last decade, state lawmakers have introduced right-to-work laws in the General Assembly.
Unionizecle.org aims to increase union membership in Greater Cleveland
Pearson believes that interest in joining unions is high but that many workers don’t know how to get one started in their workplaces.
“Maybe they’ll google how to form a union,” Pearson said, adding that people often get inaccurate or incomplete information. “Or a lot of times you’ll see on Reddit people saying, “Work is unfair and I should be paid more. How do I form a union?’
“We’re working with our web developer to make sure people who have those questions end up at unionizecle.org,” he said.
At the top of the homepage, people interested in unionizing their workplaces can click on “Organize a Union.” There they can find information about the step-by-step process for forming a union, their rights in forming a union and other resources. They also can be connected with union organizers in their industries. Pearson believes this is a major strength of Unionize Cleveland.
“We want to be able to allow people to establish a personal connection right away,” he said.
The North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor wants to make the website as relatable to visitors as possible, Pearson said. That is why it seeks to share many personal experiences of unionizing or being a union member. Pearson shares his story of first becoming a union member at age 21 when he joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) as a part-time firefighter. It began a nearly 15-year involvement in organized labor, which he hopes will become generational.
“I’m instilling in my daughters a sense of dignity for work, and I know they’ll fight like I have,” he wrote on the website. “The union is everything to me and my family, and when I die, I want it to be with a union card in my back pocket.”
A website with many good-paying jobs in Northeast Ohio
Click on “find a union job” at the top of the homepage and you’ll be directed to information about apprenticeships and how to connect with the unions offering them. At some point in September, the union jobs page will go live. Job seekers will be able to apply for the openings on the website, said Dave Megenhardt, executive director of the United Labor Agency.
The nonprofit, which focuses on training and employment, will be responsible for finding union job openings and putting them on the website, he said. ULA, which has been around more than 50 years, has contracts with public and nonprofit agencies in Cuyahoga, Summit and Lake counties, including with Greater Cleveland Works, which operates the OhioMeansJobs Center for Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
“ULA has a lot of experience in workforce development: Helping people find work and sending them through training,” Megenhardt said. “We use the technology and software on the backend of the website [needed for job postings] everyday with our workforce development.”
He expects many jobs with competitive salaries to be listed on the website.
“It will show the breadth of what a union job can be,” Megenhardt said. “Oftentimes, people will hear union jobs and think that’s a carpenter or that’s a painter. They forget about the service worker. They forget about the hotel workers.”