Union density: yet another low
Preparing to write up the 2019 union density statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I looked at last year’s and was tempted just to copy–paste. Here’s the lede, as we say in journalism: Union density—the share of employed workers belonging to unions—fell to 10.5% in 2018, the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting the data in its modern form in 1964, down from 2017’s 10.7%. The only edit I’d have to make in this bit is to change “10.5% in 2018” to “10.3% in 2019.” Similar things could… Read More
Union density update: back to 1900 levels
Sam Gindin pointed me to a history of private sector union density—the percent of workers belonging to unions—going back to 1900. (They’re credit to Troy and Sheflin’ Union Sourcebook, a standard source.) No doubt these numbers are more approximate than recent ones, but here’s a striking fact: 2018’s level, 6.4%, is a hair below 1900’s level, 6.5%. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say they’re the same. Here’s an update of yesterday’s graph. Back where the 20th century started. That’s 118 years of progress for you.
Union density hits record low
Union density—the share of employed workers belonging to unions—fell to 10.5% in 2018, the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting the data in its modern form in 1964, down from 2017’s 10.7%. (See graph below.) After rising 0.1 point in 2017, private sector density fell back to match 2016’s 6.4%, the lowest since stats began in 1929. Republican governors’ war on public sector unions is having a visible effect: just 33.9% of government workers belonged to unions last year, the lowest since 1978, when membership was on an upswing—an… Read More
Janus risk
Chris Maisano reminded me on Facebook of something I forgot to mention in today’s union density post—the forthcoming Supreme Court decision in the Janus case. I appended this to the closing paragraph of the original: A major threat to that [getting union density up]: the forthcoming Supreme Court decision in the case of Janus v. AFSCME, which would make public sector union dues optional. Should the Court decide against the union, which is almost certain given the configuration of the cast of robed ghouls, many workers would stop paying dues and not bother to join the… Read More
Shocker: unions hold their own
Unions had a pretty good year in 2017: they didn’t lose any ground. According to the latest edition of the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual survey, released this morning, 10.7% of employed wage and salary workers were members of unions, unchanged from last year. There was a mild uptick in the share of private-sector workers represented by unions (aka union density), from 6.4% to 6.5%. Density was unchanged at 34.4% for public sector workers—mildly surprising, given the war on labor being conducted by Republican governors and legislatures across the country. As the… Read More
Strikes?
The strike—labor’s most powerful weapon against capital, except maybe sabotage—is disappearing even more rapidly than unions, which is saying a lot. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that there were 15 work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers in 2016. That’s 1 above the average of the past five years, and down 96% from the average of the late 1940 and 1950s. (Stoppages include both strikes and lockouts—the data series doesn’t distinguish between the two. The overwhelming majority are strikes. Notable exceptions in recent years have been in professional sports,… Read More
Unions continue to fade
After four years of relative stability, union membership resumed its decline in 2016, with overall and private sector membership at record lows, and public sector membership continuing to tumble. The glum story is told by the graph below. Stats released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that 10.7% of wage and salary workers were union members in 2016, down 0.4 point from 2015. Union density (the term of art) fell 0.3 point to 6.4% in the private sector, and 0.8 in the public, to 34.4%. Overall density is the lowest ever,… Read More
Some unions complain about Obamacare, discreetly
A friend of LBO’s sent this along—a letter from three unions to the Democratic Congressional leadership complaining about Obamacare. It was not meant to be public, though it got leaked and is making the rounds—though not vigorously enough. In an effort to speed up the circulation, I’m posting it here. The unions are worried that their multiemployer plans are going to take a hit, a fact that the Obama administration seems not to care about despite all that unions did for them, and that employers are going to cut back on full-time… Read More
Labor legend Jerry Brown responds to critics of Jane McAlevey
This was not written for this blog, but I’ve been asked to circulate it widely. It’s a response by Jerry Brown—not the governor but the long-time leader of SEIU 1199 New England—to reviews by Steve Early and Joe Burns of Jane McAlevey’s excellent book Raising Expectations (And Raising Hell), on how to revive the U.S. labor movement. Both reviews are extremely tendentious and unfair, and do not respond to Jane’s arguments at all. I am also addressing this re-post in part to all the people who’ve embraced the Early/Burns line without having read the book. My… Read More
Union density crashes as AFL-CIO dude calls for retiring The Rat
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported (Union Membership News Release) that the percentage of U.S. wage and salary workers who were members of unions fell from 11.8% in 2011 to 11.3% in 2012. The total is substantially boosted by public sector workers (who are under heavy attack)—over a third of such workers, 35.9%, are union members (down from 37.0% in 2011), compared with just 6.6% of the private sector (down from 6.9%). In general, the younger the worker, the less likely he or she is to be represented by a… Read More
Ontario today
A few weeks ago, during the Chicago teachers’ strike, I had kind things to say about education reform in Ontario after the Liberals took power in 2002 (“How much do teacher strikes hurt kids?”). The piece drew on work by the OECD, part of an attempt to refute work by Washington Post boy blogger Dylan “Minipundit” Matthews. After posting it, several emailers and commenters noted that things have changed in Ontario, as the Liberals have embraced U.S.-style austerity. Have they ever. The government has passed a monstrosity with a name that Rahm Emanuel… Read More
Dylan Matthews has a rethink on teacher strikes
Last week, Dylan Matthews made some strong claims about how damaging teacher strikes were to student achievement—claims that I spent some time challenging (here and here). He has softened his line now. Today, writing up Rahm Emanuel’s suit to have the strike declared illegal, Matthews says: So the “clear and present danger” argument seems a more promising avenue for Rahm than the strikable issues claim. But still, the empirical burden of proof there is weighty. While there exist studies suggesting that strikes, insofar as they reduce instruction, reduce student achievement, CTU could try to poke holes in those or dispute… Read More
Matt Yglesias is not one of those union-hating liberals, he swears!
Matt Yglesias does not like my analysis of why liberals hate teachers unions (“Why teachers unions are different”). It’s all about the taxpayers, he says—and the folks who work in charter schools. If CTU members get what they want, that’s not coming out of the pocket of “the bosses” it’s coming out of the pocket of the people who work at charter schools or the people who pay taxes in Chicago. But the CTU strike isn’t mainly about wages—it’s about education policy. The city of Chicago is spending buckets of money on… Read More
Why do so many liberals hate teachers’ unions?
A lot of otherwise liberal people really hate teachers’ unions. I’ve been wondering why they’re so singled out for contempt. It struck me last night that perhaps the thinking is that it’s ok for autoworkers or janitors to unionize because they’re pretty much interchangeable from an educated upper-middle-class perspective. Teachers, though, are supposed to be “professionals,” and any kind of solidarity among them offends an individualistic, meritocratic sensibility that believes in (often “objective”) measures of evaluation. But even “professionals” can be pushed around by bosses and need solidarity to prevent being exploited… Read More
SEIU’s FFFE: a lot of expensive nothing, apparently
In my recent posts on the Wisconsin results and the dire crisis of organized labor, I argued among other things that unions must fight for the broad working class and not just their shrinking memberships if they’re ever going to turn things around. Some people who disagreed with me claimed that unions were already doing that. Example offered were the AFL-CIO’s Working America program the SEIU’s Fight for a Fair Economy. [Ed. note: I’d originally said that Working America was one word, a la high-tech branding, but it’s two. Sorry.] So what are… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 