2006 BLS Report: Overall Union Membership Dropped

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics last Friday:

In 2006, 12.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members, down from 12.5 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of persons belonging to a union fell by 326,000 in 2006 to 15.4 million. The union membership rate has steadily declined from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available. Some highlights from the 2006 data are:

The union membership rate for government workers (36.2 percent) was substantially higher than for private industry workers (7.4 percent).

48.0% of unionized workers are in the public sector (7.38 million in the public sector, 7.98 million in the private sector, per this BLS supporting report). That is up from 47.4% the previous year, and has to be an alltime record.

There are certain private-sector industries that would probably benefit from unionization, but the labor movement hasn’t figured out how to reach them, opting to try a legacy-betraying legislative solution instead of figuring out how to serve those who could truly use them.

There are certain public-sector areas that are being hurt badly by their unions, who are forgetting and need to recognize that the well of taxpayer money is not limitless, and that too-high taxes hold back economic growth (see New Jersey).

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UPDATE: Kudlow points out something that is unfortunate and doesn’t have to be, but that is definitely true — “The high union states—New York, New Jersey, Washington, etc—also happen to be high tax, slow growth, population losing, states. On the other hand, the low union states—places like Utah, Virginia, and both Carolinas—are low tax, pro business, population growing states, with strong economic growth.”