I bring you today a graphic I think of as old and familiar.
We published it at ECDI back a ways when the most current data were for the
year 2000. This chart is brought up to speed now showing union membership from
1964 to 2011. Data for the period 2000-2011 are available from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (link); the earlier data are preserved in Social Trends & Indicators USA, Volume 1—or if you need them,
send me an e-mail. Those data are also originally from the BLS.
In this period unionized labor has shifted from the
private to the public sector. In 1983, for instance 67.6 percent of union
members worked in the private and 32.4 percent in the public sector. The situation in 2011 was 48.8 percent of
union members were in the private and 51.2 percent in the public.
Perhaps because employment dropped steeply in 2008—but
public employment was, then anyway, less affected, the percent of union members
and of those covered by union increases slightly in 2008 and then continues its
downward drift the following year. The decline of unionization in the United
States represents the weakening of the working population—of which union
members are an elite. Do I hear a great sucking sound up there in the
stratosphere where the 1 percent live?
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