Union Membership in the Private Sector
Shrunk by 800,000 in 2008, BLS Reports

Labor’s ranks in the private sector of the economy shrunk from 8.2 million to 7.4 million members in 2008, a drop of 800,000 unionists, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed in its annual report on Jan. 22.

According to the labor bureau, 7.2 percent of private-sector workers were union members last year, down from 7.6 the previous year. Labor historians say this is the lowest percentage of private-sector workers in unions since 1900.

After rising for two years overall, union membership fell by 771,000 in 2009 Heavy job losses in construction, manufacturing and transportation, where unions are normally strong, contributed to the lowering of private-sector unionization. Construction lost more than 900,000 jobs last year, while 1.3 million factory jobs disappeared, BLS reported.

One bright spot in the report was that among government employees, union membership grew to 37.4 percent last year, from 36.8 percent in 2008.

The overall unionization rate edged lower to 12.3 percent last year from 12.4 percent in 2008.

The BLS report revealed that a majority of union members work for government-related institutions and agencies than for private-sector employers. It exploded the myth that blue-color workers dominate the nation’s work force.

How Will Our Leaders Respond to These Shocking Figures?

We are waiting to see if they will respond at all. They built their hopes on Congress approving the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it a lot easier to organize millions of non-union workers, Both AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Teamster President James Hoffa pledged to put 1,000 organizers into the field the moment EFCA was passed to recruit the millions of workers who wanted to join a union.

But after a year of waiting, there won’t be a “card check” EFCA, but a mutilated “compromise” that pleases the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. What then? What do our leaders propose? Do they have an organizing plan? What is it, and does it include involvement by union activists?

There probably are some labor leaders who say let ‘s do nothing. Now is not the time to organize. Eventually, we’ll have good times. Our people will be back at work. We’ll then be in a position to rebuild the AFL-CIO. We need patience to weather the storm.

That may sound sensible to labor officials who are living on fat salaries, sizeable bank accounts and a comfortable lifestyle, but what of the six million people who haven’t seen a pay check for 27 weeks or more?

It is simply not true that you can’t organize workers in “had times.” The National Nurses United is proving brilliantly that you can organize new members and play an active role in the political arena, even during an economic recession.

How do you explain the fact that during the Great Depression, with unemployment at 25 percent, the CIO and AFL were able to organize hundreds of thousands of women and minorities and win some of the greatest legislative achievements in labor history: Social Security and the Wages and Hours Act?

It is during hard times that working families need unions the most.—Harry Kelber

LaborTalk (34) will be posted here on Tuesday, January 28, 2010 and on our two web sites: www.laboreducator.org and www.laborsvoiceforchange.org