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Health care and construction sectors lead increase in nation. Ohio ranks fall slightly to 730,000, seventh in United States
Published on Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
Union membership nationally increased by 311,000 workers in 2007, after a prolonged period of decline, figures released by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
Union membership numbers in Ohio, however, fell slightly from 2006 to 2007.
In 2006, some 734,000 Ohio workers, or 14.2 percent of 5.17 million employed people in the state, were union members, according to the federal data.
In 2007, those numbers dropped to 730,000, or 14.1 percent, while the number of overall employed people rose to 5.19 million.
The percentage of unionized Ohio workers last year remained higher than the national average of 12.1 percent.
The strength of the Ohio labor movement continues to grow, particularly in the public sector, said John Russo, professor of labor studies at Youngstown State University.
While the total number might be down slightly from 2006, unions added members in many areas even as manufacturing and construction numbers declined, he said.
The labor movement has another significant presence in the state as well, he said. ''There are still large numbers of union member retirees in Ohio,'' Russo said.
Unions quickly hailed the national
increase, although the Bureau of Labor Statistics called the number ''essentially unchanged'' from the 2006 figures.
Much of the increase nationally came from organizing health care workers, particularly in California and New York, Russo said. Construction worker organizing also increased, he said. The decline in manufacturing jobs hit Michigan and Ohio the hardest in terms of overall union numbers, he said.
It is also important to note that unions increased the percentages of women and people of color in their ranks, continuing a trend that began in the 1990s, Russo said.
Hispanic workers are organizing more and unions are no longer almost exclusively white, working-class men, he said.
''(The) numbers show working people are pushing to form and join unions in order to improve their lives, despite record levels of resistance from employers,'' said John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO. ''They know that a union card is the single best ticket into the middle class, especially in today's economy.''
In all, according to the Department of Labor, there were 15.7 million union members in 2007 who made up 12.1 percent of the economy's wage and salary workers.
The bureau found that half of all union members lived in just six states: California, 2.5 million; New York, 2.1 million; Illinois, 0.8 million; Michigan, 0.8 million; Pennsylvania, 0.8 million, and New Jersey, 0.7 million. Overall, those same six states counted for one-third of all the wage and salary jobs in the country.
Ohio's 730,000 union members ranks it seventh, just behind New Jersey's 748,000 workers.
The four states that had union membership rates above 20 percent were New York (25.2 percent); Alaska (23.8 percent); Hawaii (23.4 percent), and Washington (20.2 percent).
The workers in unions also made more money than non-unionized workers, according to the bureau's statistics. In 2007, full-time wage and salary workers who were represented by unions had median weekly earnings of $863, while the non-unionized workers made $663.
At 12.1 percent, the percentage of union workers nationally was up from only 12 percent in 2006 and significantly lower than it was in 1983, the first year for which comparable data is available from the bureau. In 1983, 20.1 percent of the workers were in unions.
Union leaders viewed the increase as a reason to celebrate.
Sweeney said there have been significant organizing victories in the last year, with 40,000 child-care workers in Michigan and 50,000 child-care workers in New York joining unions. Other organizing victories included 40,000 communications workers, with 20,000 of them at AT&T Wireless; 6,000 casino workers in Connecticut and New Jersey; and 3,000 members of the administrative staff at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Beacon Journal business writer Jim Mackinnon contributed to this story.
Union membership nationally increased by 311,000 workers in 2007, after a prolonged period of decline, figures released by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
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