Oct 15 (Reuters) - Unions filed twice as many petitions

seeking to hold elections over the last year than they did in

2021, the National Labor Relations Board said on Tuesday, due in

part to a nationwide surge in organizing in industries that have

long been union-free.

The NLRB said it had received 3,286 election petitions in

the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a 27% increase from last

year and more than double the 1,638 petitions filed in fiscal

year 2021, when Democratic President Joe Biden took office.

The board also said it had received about 21,300 complaints

alleging illegal labor practices, a 7% increase from 2023 and

the highest total since 2016.

Biden, who had previously vowed to be the most pro-union

president in U.S. history, said in a statement that his

administration was the first in five decades to oversee an

increase in union election petitions.

"When unions do well, all workers do well and the entire

economy benefits," Biden said.

In most cases, unions are required to seek and then win

elections overseen by the NLRB in order to represent groups of

workers known as bargaining units. A number of large companies

including Starbucks ( SBUX ), Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Wells Fargo ( WFC ) and Apple ( AAPL ) are

facing union campaigns for the first time.

Despite the recent increase in union elections, the share of

U.S. workers represented by unions has remained at the lowest

levels in the country's modern history. Only about 11% of

American workers overall and 6% of private-sector employees have

union jobs, compared with more than 30% of all workers in the

1940s and 1950s.

The NLRB in July said unions had won 79% of elections held

since the end of the previous fiscal year, up from 76% in the

prior year. Until a few years ago, unions had typically won

about two-thirds and as few as 60% of elections held each year.

The board on Tuesday did not release new data on the outcome of

elections.

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a Biden appointee,

said during a panel discussion hosted by the National Press Club

on Tuesday that the uptick in union elections was likely due to

workers' increased awareness of their rights to organize and

advocate for unionization.

"We are seeing underserved, vulnerable populations actually

feeling empowered to elevate their voices and be heard (and) to

demand a seat at the bargaining table, whether that's through

established labor organizations or homegrown ones," she said.

At the same time, highly educated workers in traditionally

non-unionized fields have taken a greater interest in organizing

as their working conditions have deteriorated, Brian Petruska,

general counsel of the Laborers International Union of North

America Mid-Atlantic Region said during the event with Abruzzo.

He cited the example of some doctors forming unions as

private equity firms increasingly buy up medical practices.

"When the [National Labor Relations] Act was passed, people

probably would've never thought that workers like this would

need a union," Petruska said.

Read more:

US union organizing, and unions' election win rate, is

surging, NLRB says