Union Membership Hits Lowest Point Since WWII
In what should be a wake-up call to both the full trade union movement,
and all progressives, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week
that union membership declined to the lowest point since World War II.
Union membership totals 16.3 million, or 13.5 percent of all wage and
salary workers.
1. BLS Summary highlights and link to full report
2. Economic Report of the President, 2001 and link to full report
3. New York Times story and link
4. Wall Street Journal story
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UNION MEMBERS IN 2000
The share of wage and salary workers who are union members averaged 13.5
percent in 2000 as compared with 13.9 percent in 1999, the U.S.
Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The
number of union members, 16.3 million, also fell slightly from its 1999
level. The union membership rate has fallen from 20.1 percent in 1983,
the first year for which comparable data are available. Some highlights
from the 2000 data are:
--Nearly 4 in 10 government workers were union members, compared
withless than 1 in 10 private sector employees.
--Protective service workers, a group that includes police officers
andfire fighters, had the highest unionization rate--39.4 percent.
--Blacks were more likely than either whites or Hispanics to be
unionmembers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics report may be found at
http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/union2.toc.htm
[Full text at <ftp://146.142.4.23/pub/news.release/union2.txt>.]
==========================
Economic Report of the President, 2001
Transmitted to the Congress January 2001
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2002/pdf/2001_erp.pdf
The 2001 Economic Report of the President analyzes the emergence of a
New Economy and examines the driving forces that created this dynamic
economy: technology, changed business practices, and wise economic
policies.
==========================
Unions Hit Lowest Point in 6 Decades
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE -- THE NEW YORK TIMES; January 21, 2001
The percentage of American workers belonging to unions fell last year to
13.5 percent, its lowest point in six decades.
In releasing its survey of union membership last week, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics also found that the number of union members declined by
200,000 last year to 16.3 million, a discouraging development for the
labor movement at a time it is straining to reverse the decline.
Economists offered several explanations for the decline, including
retirements by union members, layoffs of many unionized workers because
of foreign competition and the failure of unions to organize enough
additional members to offset such losses.
"There are still many large economic forces acting against labor's
holding on to the numbers it has," said Tom Juravich, director of the
labor studies center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Last year's membership decline was a blow to union leaders after they
had boasted of an apparent turnaround in 1999. That year union
membership climbed by 240,000, its largest increase in more than a
decade. In addition, the percentage of workers in unions remained steady
at 13.9 percent, giving unions hope that they had arrested a steady
decline in that percentage.
...Labor leaders said they had grown increasingly successful in
organizing low-paid workers, like janitors and home health aides, as
well as high- paid professionals, including doctors and psychologists.
But such gains have been offset by the steady erosion of employment in
labor's core industries, like autos and steel.
"What's clear is that to stop any future decline organizing needs to
stay absolutely on the front burner," Professor Juravich said. "There is
no substitute for organizing."
full story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/21/national/21LABO.html
==========================
U.S. Union Membership Declined To a Record Low 13.5% in 2000
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL --
Jan.19, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Capping off a rough year for the nation's labor movement,
the percentage of the total work force belonging to a union plunged to
a record low in 2000, as the number of union members also slid.
The government reported that union membership fell to 13.5% of the work
force last year, the lowest level since data collection began in 1983.
The rate had held steady in the two previous years.
The labor movement continues to do far better in the public sector,
where layoffs are difficult to impose, than in the private sector, which
is starting to feel the sting of slower economic growth. The unions'
share of private-sector workers fell to a record low of 9% last year
from 9.5% the year before while its share of government workers inched
up to 37.5% from 37.3%. The total number of union members, meanwhile,
slipped to 16.3 million from 16.5 million in 1999.
The declines come as labor poured unprecedented amounts of human and
financial resources into last year's elections, only to see Republicans
win control, for the first time in more than four decades, of the White
House as well as both houses of Congress.
The decreases also represent an embarrassing setback for AFL-CIO leaders
who had trumpeted the 1999 figures as proof they had reversed a
decades-long slide in membership and prestige. The number of union
members had grown slightly in 1999, but the membership rate remained
unchanged.
"This suggests that 1999 was a fluke year, and that the leaders of the
union movement actually haven't figured out a way to stanch the
bleeding," said Gary Chaison, a union expert and professor at Clark
University in Worcester, Mass.
AFL-CIO organizing director Mark Splain said he was disappointed. "We
recognize that the numbers are not where we want or need them to be," he
said, "but we're making some inroads among engineers and other
professional workers."
The Labor Department data painted a picture of a labor movement
struggling to adjust to the rapid changes roiling the economy.
Traditional union strongholds, such as manufacturing and transportation,
have been shedding jobs for years, and organized labor has had
relatively little success securing footholds among high-tech or
temporary workers, two of the fastest-growing sectors of the labor
force.
Both trends have been exacerbated by the slowing economy, which has
hammered areas where unions are strongest. The manufacturing sector, for
instance, shed 194,000 jobs in 2000, while the apparel-making and auto
sectors cut 45,000 positions each.
Those cutbacks added to the long slide in union membership rates. In
1983, unions represented 20.1% of the nation's workers. By 1998, they
had reached the previous record low of 13.9%. The membership rate held
steady in 1999 after unions organized hundreds of thousands of health-
care and service workers in California and Puerto Rico.
Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright © 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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