For release 10:00 a.m. (EST) Friday, January 22, 2010 USDL-10-0069
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Union Members - 2009
In 2009, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary
workers who were members of a union--was 12.3 percent, essentially
unchanged from 12.4 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers
belonging to unions declined by 771,000 to 15.3 million, largely
reflecting the overall drop in employment due to the recession. In
1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available,
the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7
million union workers.
The data on union membership were collected as part of the Current
Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a monthly sample survey of about
60,000 households that obtains information on employment and unemploy-
ment among the nation's civilian noninstitutional population age 16
and over.
Some highlights from the 2009 data are:
--More public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a
union than did private sector employees (7.4 million),
despite there being 5 times more wage and salary workers
in the private sector.
--Workers in education, training, and library occupations
had the highest unionization rate at 38.1 percent.
--Black workers were more likely to be union members than
were white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
--Among states, New York had the highest union membership
rate (25.2 percent) and North Carolina had the lowest
rate (3.1 percent).
Industry and Occupation of Union Members
In 2009, 7.9 million public sector employees belonged to a union,
compared with 7.4 million union workers in the private sector. The
union membership rate for public sector workers (37.4 percent) was
substantially higher than the rate for private industry workers (7.2
percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the
highest union membership rate, 43.3 percent. This group includes work-
ers in heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police offi-
cers, and fire fighters. Private sector industries with high unioni-
zation rates included transportation and utilities (22.2 percent),
telecommunications (16.0 percent), and construction (14.5 percent).
In 2009, low unionization rates occurred in agriculture and related
industries (1.1 percent) and financial activities (1.8 percent).
(See table 3.)
Among occupational groups, education, training, and library occupa-
tions (38.1 percent) and protective service occupations (35.6 percent)
had the highest unionization rates in 2009. Farming, fishing, and fores-
try occupations (2.8 percent) and sales and related occupations (3.1
percent) had the lowest unionization rates. (See table 3.)
Demographic Characteristics of Union Members
The union membership rate was higher for men (13.3 percent) than for
women (11.3 percent) in 2009. (See table 1.) The gap between their
rates has narrowed considerably since 1983, when the rate for men was
about 10 percentage points higher than the rate for women. Between
1983 and 2009, the union membership rate for men declined by 11.4 per-
centage points, while the rate for women declined by 3.3 percentage
points.
In 2009, among major race and ethnicity groups, black workers were
more likely to be union members (13.9 percent) than workers who were
white (12.1 percent), Asian (11.4 percent), or Hispanic (10.2 percent).
Black men had the highest union membership rate (15.4 percent), while
Hispanic women had the lowest rate (9.7 percent).
By age, the union membership rate was highest among workers 55 to 64
years old (16.6 percent). The lowest union membership rate occurred
among those ages 16 to 24 (4.7 percent).
Union Representation
In 2009, 16.9 million wage and salary workers were represented by a
union. This group includes both union members (15.3 million) and
workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by
a union contract (1.6 million). (See table 1.) Government employees
(781,000) comprised nearly half of the 1.6 million workers who were
covered by a union contract, but not members of a union. (See
table 3.)
Earnings
In 2009, among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had
median usual weekly earnings of $908, while those who were not repre-
sented by unions had median weekly earnings of $710. (See table 2.)
In addition to coverage by a collective bargaining agreement, the
difference reflects a variety of influences including variations in
the distributions of union members and nonunion employees by occupa-
tion, industry, firm size, or geographic region.
Union Membership by State
In 2009, 29 states and the District of Columbia had union membership
rates below that of the U.S. average, 12.3 percent, while 20 states
had higher rates, and 1 state had the same rate. All states in the
Middle Atlantic and Pacific divisions reported union membership rates
above the national average, and all states in the East South Central
and West South Central divisions had rates below it. Union membership
rates rose over the year in 24 states, declined in 21 states and the
District of Columbia, and were unchanged in 5 states. (See table 5.)
Six states had union membership rates below 5.0 percent in 2009, with
North Carolina having the lowest rate (3.1 percent). The next lowest
rates were recorded in Arkansas (4.2 percent), South Carolina (4.5
percent), Georgia (4.6 percent), Virginia (4.7 percent), and Mississi-
ppi (4.8 percent). Four states had union membership rates over 20.0
percent in 2009--New York (25.2 percent), Hawaii (23.5 percent), Alaska
(22.3 percent), and Washington (20.2 percent).
State union membership levels depend on both the employment level and
union membership rate. The largest numbers of union members lived in
California (2.5 million) and New York (2.0 million). About half of the
15.3 million union members in the U.S. lived in just 6 states (Cali-
fornia, 2.5 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 1.0 million;
Pennsylvania, 0.8 million; and Michigan and New Jersey, 0.7 million
each), though these states accounted for only one-third of wage and
salary employment nationally.
Texas (the second largest state in terms of the number of wage and
salary workers) had one-fourth as many union members as New York (the
third largest), despite having 1.9 million more wage and salary em-
ployees. Similarly, Tennessee and Hawaii had comparable numbers of
union members (121,000 and 123,000, respectively), though Tennessee's
wage and salary employment level (2.4 million) was more than 4 times
that of Hawaii (526,000).
