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In 2003, another drop for union membership

Date Posted: February 20 2004

WASHINGTON (PAI) – Union membership declined again in 2003, dropping to 12.9 percent of the nation’s workforce, compared to 13.3 percent in 2002. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the numbers last month.

BLS said unions had 15.8 million members last year, a decline of 369,000. The numbers include AFL-CIO unions as well as independents such as the National Education Association, the National Treasury Employees Union, the Carpenters and the United Transportation Union. Unions also represented another 1.7 million workers who are not members, most of them in government, BLS said.

BLS statistics show that U.S. union membership has declined steadily since 1983, when 20.1 percent of the nation’s workforce was in a union.

The U.S. construction industry, at 21.7 percent, remains one of the highest job sectors for private-sector union density, trailing only the transportation and public utility industries. However, membership in building trades unions in 2003 fell by 40,000, or 3.5 percent, to 1,139 million.

The AFL-CIO had no comment on the numbers. Robert Gasperow, executive director of the Construction Labor Research Council, told the Construction Labor Report, “it would have been a surprise for (construction union membership) numbers to do anything but decline.” That’s because of the strong residential building sector in 2003, which is typically a stronghold for nonunion companies. Union-dominated commercial and heavy industrial sectors were down last year.

The BLS numbers did show a continuing trend of union members earning far more than do their non-union colleagues. The median weekly earnings figure for unionists last year was $760, compared to $599 for nonunion workers. In the construction industry, the gap between union and nonunion wages rose significantly from 35 percent in 2002 to 47 percent in 2003.

Federation President John J. Sweeney set an eventual goal of organizing 500,000 workers per year. Last year, the federation reported organizing approximately 150,000. Union dissidents, publicized by Harry Kalber, a longtime labor journalist and editor of the Labor Educator, say the declining numbers show the federation’s present strategy is failing.

The strongest job sector for unions is in government: three of every eight government workers are unionists, including 42.4 percent of local government workers – teachers, firefighters, police, etc. That figure is 0.1 percent more than in 2002.

BLS records show that half of all the nation’s union members live in six states: California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, in that order.