Labor Unions

Labor Unions Won Big on Election Day, With Ballot Initiatives and Friendly Politicians

From the East Coast to the Midwest to the West, unions are celebrating.

C. Jarrett Dieterle | 11.7.2026 7:00 AM

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Lost amid the headlines and endless midterm election punditry is the reality that Tuesday was a big night for labor unions across the board. With both major parties increasingly seeking to embrace organized labor, the 2026 elections foreshadow a potential watershed moment in our modern labor politics.

The pro-union momentum started on the East Coast with two proposed state constitutional amendments on the ballot in Vermont and Maryland. In Vermont, voters approved—by a nearly 3-to-1 margin—Proposal 3, which creates a state constitutional right to collectively bargain, while simultaneously prohibiting any future laws that might get in the way of this right. The constitutional amendment also bars the state Legislature from enacting a right-to-work law going forward.

In Maryland, voters passed—again, by almost a 3-to-1 margin—their own constitutional amendment that requires the governor's proposed budget to fully fund any collective bargaining agreements for state employees (it's unclear if the state legislature would then be required to follow suit and fund those agreements in full). If government employees and the state are unable to reach an agreement during the collective bargaining process, the amendment empowers an arbitrator to dictate terms to each side through a........

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