Job Crisis Takes toll on Union Membership

With the economy hemorrhaging jobs—more than 3.3 million jobs lost in 2009—the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show union membership in 2009 dropped slightly, from 12.4 percent of the workforce to 12.3 percent.

Nationwide, union membership dropped by 771,000, to 15.3 million in 2009, according to the BLS.
The recession eliminated jobs across the private sector, but was felt most deeply in manufacturing, transportation and construction—the nation’s economic backbone and heavily unionized sectors of the economy.

The loss in union membership, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, is another indicator of the terrible toll the economic crisis is taking on the nation’s middle class—not just union members.

Full article on the AFL-CIO Now Blog here.