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POLICY CENTERS

 

Falling Membership May Factor into Pro-Union Bill

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2007

Contact: Policy Analyst Ben DeGrow, 303-279-6536 or ben@i2i.org;
President Jon Caldara, 303-279-6536 or jon@i2i.org

Falling Membership May Factor into Pro-Union Bill

GOLDEN, Colo. -- Declining union membership in Colorado and nationwide may be playing a role in a state legislative proposal to undermine workers' rights.

House Bill 1072 would eliminate a protective separate election and majority vote before a shop agreement could be set up that forces all employees to join or pay dues to a union. Data released today from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that a continued drop in union membership may provide a motivating factor behind HB 1072, including the following:

  • Colorado's workforce grew by 100,000 from 2005 to 2006 but lost 5,000 union members
  • The share of Colorado workers with union membership plunged from 8.3 percent (2005) to 7.7 percent (2006)
  • Colorado was one of 31 states with a declining share of union member workers this year
  • The percentage of wage and salary workers nationwide with union membership fell from 12.5 percent in 2005 to 12.0 percent in 2006
  • In the past 20 years, the American workforce has grown by 29 million while union membership has declined by more than 1.5 million
  • Nationally, private sector union membership dropped from 7.8 percent (2005) to 7.4 percent (2006), while public sector union membership also declined from 36.5 percent (2005) to 36.2 percent (2006)
  • From 2005 to 2006, union membership nationwide dropped among virtually every demographic, according to age, sex, and race
  • Workers between 45 to 64 represent the most unionized age group (16.0 percent), more than the 25 to 44 age group (11.6 percent) and those under 25 (4.4 percent)

More information is available here.

The Independence Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit public policy research organization based in Golden, Colo.

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