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Subscribe to RSSThe number of American workers who belong to a union fell yet again last year, as both government workers and those in private industry saw their ranks shrink.
About 11.3 percent of the workforce, or 14.4 million workers, belonged to a union in 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. That’s down from 11.8 percent of the workforce, or 14.8 million workers, in 2011.
The American union labor movement has struggled for years with declining membership and increasing attacks from those who oppose organized labor. In December, Michigan – once considered a stronghold of American union power - became the 24th state to approve right-to-work legislation. That type of legislation makes it harder for unions to maintain power because union-covered members are no longer required to pay dues.
Many experts say the move in Michigan could embolden more states to pass similar legislation, further threatening the nation’s once-strong labor union movement.
The data released Wednesday also reinforced the changing face of the American labor movement. While most Americans think of union members as manufacturing workers wearing hard hats, these days union membership is actually more common among public-sector workers such as teachers, firefighters and police officers.
Still, both sectors saw their union membership ranks shrink last year.
About 7.3 million public-sector workers belonged to a union in 2012, the BLS reported, down from about 7.6 million in 2011.
About 7.0 million private-sector workers belonged to a union in 2011, down from 7.2 million a year earlier.
Related:
Teachers, other government workers, become growing face of union fights
Michigan's right-to-work laws will ripple across U.S.
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I thought last four years was their best time ever?
Who are you getting your smoke from? Need some and rose colored glasses also. Please tell me!
The company I work for has gutted and downsized I.T. We have half as many programmers, network engineers etc than we had 10 years ago.
..and every morning, a small army of Indian "contractors" on L1 and H1B visas get off the bus in front of the headquarters and goes inside to do those same jobs.
We don't NEED unions any more. We can trust the corporations to do the right thing, can't we?
It would seem that your company finally figured out how bad the union "workers" were ripping them off!
Did I say anything about unions? Nobody was union.
The point is that you hate and distrust government and unions, but you have blind faith in corporations. THEY would NEVER do anything wrong, would they?
I guess you priced yourself out of the market didn't you. IT has gotten easier over the years as systems and OS's have become more standardized.
I know of two HS grads that got just a certificate from their local JC's and are making big bucks, (for HS grads), doing IT contracting because they are smart. I know of another guy who is retired and doing it with no certificate, just learned it on his own. It's not all that difficult.
You know absolutely NOTHING about I.T.
Please explain to me what is more "standardized" that has made I.T. "easier".
..and yes, we're ALL going to be priced out of the global "market". That's the problem. An Indian programmer is happy making 5 bucks an hour. I'll be bankrupt at that wage.
Please define "big bucks".
Texas is a right to work state and the pulic workers here do just fine without unions. I retired as a public works superintendent after 21 years of service. Unions would not have done anything very beneficial for me.
Unions served their purpose in their day. Closing sweatshops and insuring employee safety is no longer something a union is required to prevent. Union pay caused a gap in pay that made it hard for non-union employees to afford to buy a car. At age 41, I bought my first and only new car. The prices are just too high. A new car costs what I paid for a home.
Goodbye unions, your job is done.
If you were STILL a public worker in Texas, you would be sweating over that nice pension now. That's the first thing the teabirthers want to get rid of.
...and retirement after only 21 years will NOT be an option when the teabirthers get through.
It's time to get ride of the unions, especially the public sector (local, state, & federal) unions. They are a plague that is financially decimating the taxpayer and our cities. It should be illegal for public employees to unionize...it's a conflict of interest. If they don't like working in the public sector as non-union then let them go to work in the private workforce. I'm sick and tired of paying for these do nothing people who bitch, bitch, bitch, get too much pay, outrageous benefits, vacation, holidays, sick-pay, & pensions. These union employees are killing the economy not helping it. The states that are not right to work are the bought & paid for Democratic held states.
But there is something you can do ... work to improve your skills and make yourself marketable and your standard of living will be just fine
Wow, I love it....nothing but a bunch of cry babies. If it wasn't for union protection, they'd have been fired LONG ago. All they do is drive the cost of everything UP and the quality goes DOWN. Good Riddance.....don't let the door hit cha in tha ass.
GOOD! You really don't think a cadilac costs $60.000 do you.It's all the union entitlements that hammer the consumer.You really don't think the auto company is going to take the hit do you?
Why does the Japanese or the Geman luxury car cost just as much or more than the Cadillac?
According to Consumer Reports, J.D. Powers and associates, and others who rank auto quality, American auto quality has caught up with and in many cases passed their foreign competitors. In fact, Cadillac has very good quality rankings. It's not the 80s any more.
American auto problems in the last century were never because of labor or unions. The built the cars that management let them build. Management by bean counters didn't work.
That's dead wrong. US auto companies could not compete with UAW wages so their only alternative was to cut corners in reliability. That eventually caught up with them and they had to build quality to compete again. Unfortunately that meant they couldn't make any money. Proof is in the fact that the GM restructure required union pay to be reduced to prevailing non union wages paid at Toyota, Honda, etc.
Only for new hires. Everyone else is still making the same thing they were.
What do you think caused the gains in quality? That was a management problem, not labor. No American car companies were about to go out of business. The Wall Street meltdown froze credit and reduced sales to zero.
Seriously, where WERE you when all this was happening?
At one time, there was a need for the "union". I am not talking about the union thugs, or the union leadership. I am talking about the need to have safety and professionalism in the work place, the early unions brought this forward. Today, the "Unions" are nothing but politics and the using of thugs to get a agenda push through what ever or who ever. The unions of today needs to go away. Even allot of union members don't like the way the "Unions" are going, they can't make their own decisions, the unions tells them what to do and who to did it too...........
Don't fret if you lose your union base democrats, Obama will replace those voters with illegal ones!
Don't worry. GOP policies will assure us of a plentiful supply of poor people for years to come. What you need are more old white guys. I don't know where you're going to get them.
Obama is making the middle class dissolve, we will be a 2 class society if he keeps this up.
The middle class began dissoving 15 years ago. That was "free enterprise" that George W bailed out on his way out the door in 2008, not union labor.
Were you asleep?
"Hope and Change" that we voted for in 2008 is just "more of the same" for the last 4 years - lets hope Obama figures it out this time.
Under Obama the rich have only gotten richer and the poor have only gotten poorer. Bush did TARP, a LOAN. It was paid back with interest making money for the taxpayer. Obama did the handouts that lost money for the taxpayer.
Bush and Republican polices go t us here.
If McCain had won, the rich would have only gotten richer and the poor have only gotten poorer.
Besides, I thought that was what Republicans wanted? What's the problem?
sam I hate to bust your bubble. If you check your facts Bush never did bail out anyone. The democrats had control of the house and the senate for the last 2 years of his presidency. The democrats are the ones that passed the bailout and Bush just signed the bill. So are you now blaming the Democrats for the bail out as they are the one's that passed it in both house's.
The company I work for has lost 80% of it's market value in the last 3 years. We paid a succession of CEOs quite handsomely to do that. We're still paying the ones that left, and will be for years to come.
I'm pretty sure I could have done the same thing for half the price.
I'm pretty sure you could run a company in to the ground too!
The CEO ws in the Union? Or he was straddle with over priced and over benefited union workers?
So the CEO was trying to cut costs to save the company and you $hit all over him for it? That explains you to a tee.
Lets see, lose 80% of the company's value but still keep the same high paid staff on hand because after all companies are nothing but socialist job creators, right?
It's a non-union company, so you can't blame it on union members.
I $hit all over him for replacing Americans with foreigners who are here on Visas that are SUPPOSED to be only for workers with skills that are not availbable or hard to find. We have plenty of Oracle DBAs in America. We don't need to import them.
Are you American? Just curious.
Koch Billionaire Brothers have spent Billions to destroy Unions. Why? 1.)So they can keep Workers Wages Low. 2.) Fire you when they want, for whatever they want. 3.) You will be a virtual Slave to Greedy, Non Taxpaying, Loophole Loving, Too Big to Fail Coorperations.
2.) Fire you when they want, for whatever they want.
You do realize that it is their Company, right? They own it , the put the money out to get it going & took all the risks. Where the hell do people working for someone else get off to thinking they have a stake in the business. I'm not an owner or in a Union but have worked as a Maintenance Contractor for 30 years. Worker don't have a say in the business. Get used to it. They can hire you & fire you at will. Maybe if you do your work & keep your smart mouth shut they will see you as an asset & reward you for it. If you don't like it, hit the road.
Or join a union where you can be a do nothing sack sh!t and and never get fired. Show up stoned and drunk and still have a job. Union is Job 1. Look for the union lable when you are buying a piece of sh!t UAW car. lol.
Well if they were wiling to spend billions that demonstrates beyond doubt what a destructive force unions are on corporations. Thank you for confirming it!
Death of Unions and thier boss's alongwith less government workers and control , sure would help the USA regain its standing in the economy, job market and companies in the USA, rather than having to go offshore. Maybe there is a glimmer of hope yet ( not Obama's hope) for the US citizen's.
Are you serious?
So, if we just get rid of unions, then we can all afford to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day for 50 cents an hour like those people who build iphones?
Is a loaf of bread going to cost a nickel now?
Yippee. Happy days are here again.
There are labor laws now that guard against that, there for no more need for unions. Simply need non lazy workers.
There are labor laws that guard against that?
You missed the point. THAT is what we're competing against.
Global Economy = Global Standard of Living. Our standard of living is not competitive in a global economy and will decline until it is.
If you think you're immune to competition from third world goat herders, guess again. This will lower EVEYONE'S standard of living, not just those who lose their jobs to foreigners.
..and Republicans told us that every single one of them was going to make the sky fall and destroy America.
Minimum wage, overtime, all of those "labor laws" would be repealed tomorrow if the teabirthers had their way.
Well looks like the UAW was good for those drunks and pot heads that were fired by Chrysler last year. They got their jobs back. Thanks to the UAW. Better buy a Chrysler or Jeep that was made before noon lunch!!
Since "we the people" are taking a giant loss by selling stock back to Chrysler to the tune of 1.3 Billion.
That pales in comparison to the hair cut we are going to take dumping GM stock. Their share price would have to triple for us to break even.
Chrysler Jeep quality is just as good as the foreign (un-American) car that youi bought. It's not the 80s any more. Do some research. American auto manufacturers caught up in quality a long time ago.
Besides that, foreign cars are ugly, "Look! There goes another egg shaped thing." I can't even tell them apart. Americans buy some trendy foreign brand for status LOL. They're all "Camrys" to me.
Less Obama voters every year, this is a great trend.
He already got re-elected. Try to keep up.
Yeah the sick, lame and lazy druggies of Detroit cannot depend on the union(s) to defend them like they used to be able to. Oh, Oh, do I hear Big Al and "Reverend" Jesse riding in on their big black horses? Maybe there is "hope" for them yet.
LMAO, I lived in Janesville WI for 7 years. You never wanted a truck built the day after a Packer Monday night game. lol...They have since closed. Lack of productivity. Isn't that an oxie moron?
Now if we can just get the public sector workers out from under union rule. Our elected officials, (state,fed,local) do not have the backbone to stand up to the unions that voted them in, therefore they cave into outrageous pay and benefit packages. Most of these employees would never cut it in the private sector and were "culled" from unemployment and welfare lines. They spend most of their time thinking of ways to as little as possible and recruit their friends and relatives for other "cushy" govt jobs at our expense. These are proven facts and I can give you hundreds of examples........
If it wasn't for the corruption, nepotism, strong arm tactics, dues, political party affiliation, incompetency and lack of leadership, the Unions would be OK. They made America what it "was" and now what it "is", unable to compete in the World market. Now it's to little to late, "turn out the lights the party's over"...
Many years ago I was a supervisor in a union shop,and on Fridays (payday) the entire assembly department went to the nearby Mexican restaurant and had pitchers of margaritas for lunch. I'll guarantee you didn't want anything made on a Friday afternoon!
Union membership may not be the best thing for America? Will wonderous and insightful thoughts never cease to amaze. Look what a wonderful thing they've done for public education.
My, my, my, so here we are, we still have some of the handouters defending unions and business is still leaving the USA.
I wonder, will we have to get down to zero businesses, before the dem handouters shut up?
unions backed obama,you reap what you sow.
There are labor laws to guard against those abuses of employees. Ask one of those overseas clothing employees paid peanuts and killed in a fire with all factory doors locked! Also saw Pappa John's whining about obama care costs: I'm sorry if you can't have 25 year "Temp" workers without any medical plan. Just don't give away 2 million free pizzas as shown in Peyton Manning commercial and you'll have the money!
Couldn't even pay attention to a 60 second commercial could you?
Bleeding your members dry to pay off the DNC is like a bad drug habit!
Then again you union asshats killed the twinkie so I kinda hope all you union types fade away to whatever collective hell awaits you!
Couldn't happen to a nicer group of thugs,commies and killers
sounds good to me now if we can get the fed.mployees were taken ot of union ranks that would be even better.They do not belong it an union they should work under the civil service rules and regs. and that would meanthey would have to really work and get pay raises and promotions on merrit not because the union said so. the time of the union is over and it needs to be put out of its sorry state aand laid to rest in a deep grave.