Number 19 Wednesday, January 29, 1997
ISSN 1522-5968
Economic Developments
Unions Union Membership Declines By 100,000 To 16.3 Million, Or 14.5 Percent Of Workforce

The number of workers represented by unions fell by nearly 100,000 in 1996 to about 16.3 million, according to data released Jan. 28 by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The number of workers who actually belonged to unions in 1996 comprised 14.5 percent of the workforce, down from 14.9 percent in 1995, BLS said.

Denise Mitchell, an AFL-CIO spokeswoman, pointed out that the survey includes both AFL-CIO affiliates and independent unions.

''I think our report will show [AFL-CIO] about even with last year,'' Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the BLS survey showed that the number of unionized private-sector female employees actually increased in 1996. ''It looked like the dip in union members was due to a drop in the public sector,'' Mitchell said.

The AFL-CIO is about where it expected to be at this point, Mitchell said. ''We had hoped we could level off and stop the decline in union members. I don't think you could expect a turnaround for two or three years.''

The data show there are 9.4 million union members in private nonagricultural industries, making up about 10.2 percent of wage and salary jobs--a decrease from 10.4 percent in 1995.

Federal, state, and local governments employed about 6.9 million union members, accounting for 37.7 percent of wage and salary employment in this sector.

In private industry, transportation and public utilities, at 26.5 percent, had the highest proportion of unionized workers. Construction was next, at 18.5 percent membership, followed by manufacturing, at 17.2 percent. The rate of unionization for mining was 14.1 percent.


Unionization In Major Occupations
Turning to major occupations, BLS said the precision production, craft and repair group, and the operators, fabricators, and laborers group had the highest proportion of union membership at about 23 percent each.

The production craft and repair group includes mechanics, electricians, and other skilled trade workers. The operators, fabricators, and laborers group includes machine and vehicle operators, assemblers, cleaners, and helpers.

Among service occupations, protective services had a unionization level of 39.5 percent, bumping up the percentage of union membership in service occupations to 13.2 percent. With protective services removed from the equation, however, only 9.1 percent of workers in service occupations were union members.


Blacks, Men More Likely Union Members
Blacks and men are more likely to belong to a union than whites and women, the BLS data show.

A full 18.9 percent of black workers were union members. This figure is down from 19.9 percent in 1995. About 14 percent of whites belong to unions, down from 14.2 percent in 1995.

Of demographic groups BLS examined, Hispanics had the smallest percentage of union members in 1996, at 12.9 percent, down slightly from 13 percent one year earlier.

BLS data show 16.4 percent of white men belonged to unions, and only 11.3 percent of white women. Among blacks, 21.6 percent of men are union members, but only 16.5 percent of women. Hispanic men and women had relatively low union membership, with 13.7 percent of men belonging and 11.8 percent of women.

The accompanying BLS tables and BNA graphics show the latest data.

Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by selected characteristics
(Numbers in thousands)

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union affiliation and selected characteristics.

Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by occupation and industry
(Numbers in thousands)

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers
by union affiliation, occupation, and Industry

Copyright © 1997 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.