Labor bosses try new tactics as union membership dwindles

*First appeared in the Feb. 12th edition of the Laurel Chronicle newspaper.

In January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership in the United States. The report, aptly titled “Union Members – 2013,” included some interesting statistics.

In 2013, the union membership rate was 11.3 percent, or 14.5 million workers. This is a significant decline below the first year for which comparable data was collected (1983), when more than 20 percent, or 17.7 million workers, participated in unions. Today’s figures equal about 18 percent fewer unionized workers than in ‘83.

We often stereotype unions, and there’s probably a reason for that…or at least according to the 2013 data. At 35.3 percent, public sector workers had a union membership rate more than five times higher than that of private sector workers (6.7 percent rate). Within the public sector, the union membership rate was highest for local governments (40.8 percent), which includes heavily unionized occupations like teachers, police officers, and firefighters.

I joke about those “liberal states” like California and New York, and guess what? Turns out they have the most union members, with 2.4 million and 2 million workers calling California and New York home, respectively. No big surprise there, huh?

It’s interesting to note that over half of all American union workers live in just seven states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio), even though “these states accounted for only one-third of wages and salary employment nationally.”

Curiously, Democrats control the governorships of three of those states, while Republicans control the governorships of the other four. Maybe union members are coming around to Republican ideas?

In Mississippi, we are one of nine states with union membership below 5 percent. In 2013, 3.7 percent of workers were members of unions. The rate increases to 4.2 percent when you include both union members and workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union or an employee association contract.

Mississippi’s low rate of unionized workers is in line with other southern states. The report notes that “all states in the East South Central and West South Central divisions had rates” below the national average.

Despite the dwindling membership rolls of unions, labor bosses haven’t given up the fight just yet. Their heyday appears to have been a thing of the past, but make no mistake: They still wield considerable political influence (and the corresponding PACs to provide it), particularly in Democrat circles.

I guess it’s no surprise that unions have begun to focus on the southern region as a way to beef up membership rolls. The automotive industry has been targeted by labor bosses who call for the unionization of southern autoplants, including at the Nissan plant in Canton. While their efforts in our state haven’t yet been successful, one can never rule out the tenacity of unions. They are, after all, driven by a desperate need to bolster membership rolls and, in turn, bank accounts.

Whether their efforts will succeed is anyone’s guess, though it appears to me that, for now at least, most Americans view unions – and their role in the workplace – as a thing of the past.