The Gallup polling organization recently revealed a poll that shows employee unions are at an all time low in popular opinion. Gallup found “organized labor taking a significant image hit in the past year.”

While 66% of Americans continue to believe unions are beneficial to their own members, a slight majority now say unions hurt the nation’s economy. More broadly, fewer than half of Americans — 48%, an all-time low — approve of labor unions, down from 59% a year ago.

That is a pretty hard fall in just one year. Almost 10% of Americans have changed their opinions toward the negative on unions in just a year. Worse, the once high of 75% approval as it stood in 1957 is now down to 48%. That is also a pretty hard fall. According to Gallup, it has never been that low.

Negatives against unions have grown since Gallup first began to poll about unions in 1937.

There has been an even larger jump in the percentage saying labor unions mostly hurt the U.S. economy, from 36% in 2006 to 51% today. This is the first time since the question was established in 1997 that more Americans have said unions hurt rather than help the economy. Americans’ general concerns about the current state of the economy could certainly be a factor in these more negative views of unions, in addition to specific perceptions about unions.

Gallup seems to have nothing but bad news for union popularity. It seems they are falling into the negative in just about every category!

Check out Gallup’s full report.

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