More on union density
A couple of follow-up points to Thursday’s post on falling union density. manufacturing leads the way down Headline figures on private sector union density (the share of the employed belonging to unions) obscure an important fact: the downtrend is largely a story of the decline in manufacturing. Over four-fifths—88% to be precise—of the fall in the number of unionized workers since 1983 is accounted for by the loss of union jobs in manufacturing. Since 2000, it’s 84%. The history is graphed below. The raw numbers are stunning. From 1983 to 2022, private… Read More
Union density keeps falling
As it has for thirty-seven of the last fifty years, the share of the workforce belonging to a union, aka union density, fell in 2022. It’s risen in only four years in that span; it was unchanged in nine. The grim history, reported this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is graphed below. In 2022, 10.1% of the employed belonged to a union, down from 10.3% the previous year. The decline was led by the public sector, where density fell from 33.9% to 33.1%, a decline of 0.8; the private sector… Read More
Fresh audio product: class conflict on the rails and in the university
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): December 15, 2022 Intercept reporter Ryan Grim, author of this article, on the fight between workers and bosses in the rail industry • economist Sanjay Reddy on the fight between adjuncts and bosses in the neoliberal university
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.
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
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
LBO News from Doug Henwood 