Union membership dropped sharply last year in the United States, as the percentage of manufacturing workers in unions fell below the percentage of American workers in unions for the first time in modern history.þþThe Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday that union membership fell by 326,000 in 2006, to 15.4 million workers, bringing the percentage of employees in unions to 12 percent, down from 12.5 percent in 2005. Those figures are down from 20 percent in 1983 and from 35 percent in the 1950s.þþWork force experts said the decline in union membership was caused by large-scale layoffs and buyouts in the auto industry and other manufacturing industries, together with the labor movement’s difficulties in organizing nonunion workers fast enough to offset those losses.þþIn manufacturing, which had long been the heart of organized labor, the percentage of workers in unions sank to 11.7 percent, from 13 percent. Perhaps the brightest spot for labor was the extent of government workers in unions, 36.2 percent, although that, too, was down, from 36.5 percent in 2005.þþUnion leaders have long said that for organized labor to turn around, it must reverse the decline in membership in the private sector. But the percentage of private sector workers in unions continued to fall last year, slipping to 7.4 percent — the lowest percentage since the early 1900s. In 2005, the private sector percentage was 7.8 percent.þþAt a news conference on Wednesday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. pointed to polling results showing that 53 percent of nonunion workers said they would vote to join a union tomorrow if they could.þþ“Sixty million Americans say they would join a union tomorrow if they could — that’s far more than the 15.4 million now in unions,” said Stewart Acuff, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s organizing director. “What’s stopping them is employer resistance.” þþWith the Democrats in control of Congress, labor unions hope they can reverse their decline by persuading Congress to enact the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the right to unionize through an easier, less antagonistic method — signing pro-union cards.þþBut many business groups favor the current system in which employers can insist on using secret-ballot elections to determine whether a majority of workers want to join a union. þþBusiness groups assert that elections are fairer, while labor unions assert that elections often involve employer intimidation of workers and the firing of union supporters.þþ
Source: NY Times
