Government Cuts Keep U.S. Union Rate At Record Low In 2011 - The rate of union membership in the U.S. fell to a record low in 2011 for

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(Free-Press-Release.com) January 27, 2012 -- The rate of union membership in the U.S. fell to a record low in 2011 for a second-straight year, as the loss of government jobs exceeded a rise in private-sector workers, the Labor Department said.

Labor unions represented 6.9 percent of employees in private companies, unchanged from 2010 and down from 7.2 percent in 2009, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate in the public sector was 37 percent.

The overall union membership rate -- reflecting both public and private sector workers -- was 11.8 percent, down from 11.9 percent in 2010.

“We may have reached a level where the union numbers simply can’t decline anymore, but if you’re not expanding, how can you call yourself a movement?” Gary Chaison, a labor professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in a telephone interview. “Unions simply can’t make any gains in the private sector because it’s so expensive to organize. In the public sector, the layoffs of teachers and firefighters are really where the labor movement is hurting.”

Workers in education, training and library occupations had the highest unionization rate, the Labor Department said. Among states, New York again had the highest union membership rate at 24 percent, while North Carolina had the lowest, at 2.9 percent.

The report also showed the average weekly earnings of union workers were $938, while non-union workers were paid $729.

In 1983, the first year the agency collected the data, 20.1 percent of the U.S. workforce and 16.8 percent of company workers were members of a union.

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