PEP, March 2009: Labor grows for second year in a row

Union membership in the United States grew by close to half a million in 2008, raising hope that the labor movement is starting to reverse the long-term decline in its ranks. One-third of the workforce was in unions in the 1950s, but less than 13 percent is part of organized labor today.

With 16.1 million members in 2008 — up 428,000 in the year — unions represented 12.4 percent of the labor force, compared to 12.1 percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Today’s numbers confirm what many working people already know — that if they are given a fair chance, American workers will join unions in larger numbers,” said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, when the BLS released the new figures in January. “Workers in unions are much more likely to have health care and pension benefits than those without a union.”

Public employee union membership grew again in 2008, and government workers are five times more likely to be represented by unions than those in the private sector, where only 7.6 percent of the workforce is organized. New York has the highest union membership rate — 24.9 percent — in the country.

Edgar deJesus, interim organizing director at DC 37, called the new figures on union membership encouraging. But he said that for the labor movement to become the workplace and political colossus it once was, unions would need to devote much more of their personnel and financial resources to organizing.

He said passage of the federal Employee Free Choice Act — which would allow workers to choose a union by signing representation cards rather than going through the current drawn-out voting process that allows for employers to intimidate and fire union supporters — would lead to a dramatic increase in membership. DC 37 is in the second year of an organizing drive of Central Park Conservancy workers, who would already have a union and probably a contract if EFCA were in effect, he said.