Why Sectoral Bargaining Is the Labor Movement’s Next Frontier
August 16, 2026
States Lead as Sectoral Bargaining Gains Momentum
A new op-ed from Harvard’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy argues that sectoral bargaining, not just worksite-level organizing, is emerging as the labor movement’s next major tool. Writing in TIME, Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs point to Massachusetts and California as early proof points for the model.
This spring, 70,000 rideshare drivers in Massachusetts won the largest union organizing victory since 1941 through the state’s new App Drivers Union. California followed with a law giving more than 800,000 drivers the right to unionize, and the California Gig Workers Union recently won enough driver support to trigger recognition.
Sectoral bargaining sets wages and working conditions across an entire industry rather than negotiating them shop by shop. Block and Sachs argue this approach removes a major incentive for employer resistance to unionization: it prevents companies that pay union wages from being undercut by non-union competitors in the same market.
The authors note that federal labor law does not currently allow for sectoral bargaining for most workers, but states retain authority over sectors the National Labor Relations Act never covered, including gig, domestic and farm workers. That opening let Massachusetts and California move first.
The AFL-CIO endorsed sectoral bargaining for the first time in its history at its annual convention last month, calling for organizing “not just workplace by workplace but on an industrywide basis.”
For the union carpenters and signatory contractors CCT represents, the shift underscores a broader point: sector-wide standards and worksite collective bargaining agreements are not competing strategies. They reinforce each other. Project labor agreements already apply many of the same principles on a project-by-project basis, setting consistent wage and safety standards across every contractor on a job site regardless of union affiliation.
READ MORE: Where project labor agreements are used and required
Block and Sachs helped develop a Model State Sectoral Bargaining Law that would let states set up boards to recognize new bargaining sectors and negotiate industry-wide agreements. They argue states, not Washington, are where the next chapter of the labor movement will be written.
Read the full op-ed at TIME.
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