Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual survey of union membership in the US, and found that union density as a percentage of the overall workforce grew, to 12.1%. This growth is nothing short of stunning. Union membership as a percentage of the workforce has been in decline for every year since the BLS began collecting data, except two - this year, and 2005, when membership held steady. The last few years worth of numbers are as follows: 2007 - 12.1%; 2006 - 12.0%; 2005 - 12.5%; 2004 - 12.5%.
The surey is based on a sample of 60,000 households. The survey's technical note warns that "union membership data for 2007 are not strictly comparable with data for 2006 and earlier years because of the introduction of updated population controls with the release of January data." However, it appears that these same adjustments didn't do much to change other workforce numbers, like the unemployment rate.
Reaction among labor bloggers has varied. The AFL-CIO was mildly pleased to hear the news. At Working Life, Josh Pile was utterly shocked, and certain that the rise must have been a statistical fluke. American Rights at Work warned labor activists not to be compacent in spite of the numbers - union-busting is still a huge problem. (Full disclosure: I'm providing ARAW with a bit of advice on an upcoming project.)
I'm quite happy to hear the news. When the January 2006 numbers showed that union membership held steady between 2004 and 2005, I was certain that we were on the cusp of turning around the decline of the labor movement. The January 2007 numbers, showing a dip of 0.5% between 2005 and 2006, were naturally a big disappointment. Now that the numbers are ticking upward, I think there's a renewed hope that even under the most anti-worker administration in decades, we can still reverse the tide. We're still a long way from returning to the level of union membership we had when BLS first started collecting data - around 20% - but this is a step in the right direction.
Moreover, some of the internal numbers are very interesting. Membership among 16-to-24-year-olds rose from 4.4% in 2006 to 4.8% in 2007. Union wages also rose by an average of $30 per week (from $833 in 2006 to $863 in 2007), compared to a $21 weekly bump for non-union workers. Private sector union membership ticked up from 7.4% to 7.5%, while public sector union membership fell slightly, from 36.2% to 35.9% (within this category, the sharpest fall was in federal union membership, which fell from 28.4% to 26.4%). In Colorado, a state whose legislature has taken a sharply pro-union turn since the 2006 election, union membership rose from 7.7% to 8.7%. Membership was down in some swing states (-0.1% and -0.2% in Ohio and Missouri respectively) and up in others (+0.7% in Florida).
At the end of the day, these numbers serve as a reflection on the last year, but shouldn't cause us to be at all complacent about the fate of the labor movement. As ARAW points out, union-busting and lax enforcement of labor law are still a problem. Workers still face enormous obstacles in forming unions and taking control of their working conditions. We still need innovative strategies for addressing these issues and reinvigorating the labor movement.
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