Perhaps on January 28, 2009, or there abouts, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its 2008 summary of union members at the United States Dept. of Labor website. (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm)

The 2007 report began with:

In 2007, the number of workers belonging to a union rose by 311,000 to
15.7 million, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported today. Union members accounted for 12.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers, essentially unchanged from 12.0 percent in 2006. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the
union membership rate was 20.1 percent.

Union watchers are curious to see if union membership grew in 2008 over 2007?

In 2008 (the 2007 data) revealed the first increase in union density in the modern era of record keeping (since 1983). The increase was only 0.1%, which James Sherk noted was within the margin of error of the survey. There had been a few other times during that period when it stayed the same but it had not increased. In the years following the years when union density remained constant it again declined, often by a little more than average. Between 2005 and 2006 the decline was somewhat larger than average, 0.5%. The 2007 increase may have been corrective.

A PDF document of comparative data on union membership created by the Public Service Research Foundation can be downloaded HERE.

No related posts.