Modern News

David Denholm dropped a note by today and I thought you would find it interesting…

-By David Denholm

On January 25 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its annual report on union membership in America – “Union Members 2007.”

This is particular interest because it shows a slight uptick in union density, which is within the margin of error for the survey, but it was the first such increase since modern record keeping began in 1983.

Total union density increased by 0.1 percent. On private payrolls the increase was 0.1 percent, from 7.4 in 2006 to 7.5 in 2006 while in the public sector it fell by 0.5 percent from 36.2 in 2006 to 35.9 in 2007.

The key to understanding the 2007 figures is that 43 percent of all new jobs were in public employment. In 2007, government employment grew 3.2 percent while employment on private payrolls grew by just 0.8 percent. In recent years the average annual increase in public employment has been about 1.7 percent compared to 1.6 percent in the private sector.

Of the 311,000 new union members, 179,000 (63 percent) were public employees and only 132,000 were on private payrolls.

Despite the decline in union density in the public sector and the fact that only one in six jobs is with government, the extent to which the entire union movement is comprised of public employees increased again from 48.0 percent in 2006 to 48.2 percent in 2007. In 2007, government employee union members comprised the majority of all union members in 25 states.

Since the apparent increase of 0.1 percent is within the margin of error for the survey, I applied a five year moving average to the data for the last ten years and found that the downward trend continues in all sectors.

Interestingly, the annual data shows that union density in the public sector has declined for two years but the five year average, which I believe is a bit more accurate in showing trends, shows that this decline in public sector density has been going on for five years. I have a table showing this which I’d be happy to share with you if you are interested.

I would be pleased to provide additional information about my research on this report if you are interested.

Also, unionstats.com has updated its site with the detailed figure on employment, union membership and union density – total, private, public, manufacturing and construction – for 2007.

We are in the process of updating our tables and charts for each state using this data to show the trends. These include employment, union membership and union density – total, private, public, manufacturing and construction – as well as charts comparing the actual number of union members in the private and public sectors and showing the total number of public employees and union members.

The entire set of ten tables and charts for a state and/or for the nation is available on request. Since updating more than 500 tables and charts takes awhile, requests will be handled on a first come first served basis.

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It is simply absurd that government workers have unions to speak for them. Unions are the enemy to business and what “business” are government workers in? OUR business! Who can doubt that unions are antithetical to good government because unions interest is NOT the people’s business? A union’s interests are the government workers, not the work they do for the voters!

As far as I am concerned a union for a government worker should be illegal!

Thanks David for the info.