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In 2006, 12.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members, down from 12.5 percent a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported January 25. 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:
Workers in the public sector had a union membership rate nearly five times that of private sector employees—36.2 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively.
Education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rate among all occupations, at 37 percent.
The unionization rate was higher for men (13.0 percent) than for women (10.9 percent).
Black workers (14.5 percent) were more likely to be union members than were white (11.7 percent), Asian (10.4 percent) or Hispanic (9.8 percent) workers.
Union membership rates were highest among workers age 45 to 64 (16.0 percent) and were lowest among those ages 16 to 24 (4.4 percent).
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