Private Sector Unionization Increases for First Time in Years

Author: Melissa Gonzalez Boyce, XpertHR Legal Editor

January 28, 2014

According to the new annual report released by the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the percentage of private sector workers who are union members increased from 6.6 percent in 2012 to 6.7 percent in 2013. However, the BLS found that the overall percentage of US wage and salary workers belonging to a union remained the same at 11.3 percent. Specifically, 16 million workers were represented by a union, including those who were union members (14.5 million) and those whose jobs were covered by a union contract (1.5 million).

In its report, the BLS provides specific data on union membership by sector, industry, occupation, member demographics and location. Notable findings include:

  • Public sector workers had a union membership rate more than five times higher than private sector workers. Approximately 7.2 million (or 35.3 percent of) public sector employees belonged to a union, compared to 7.3 million (or 6.7 percent of) employees in the private sector.
  • Private sector employees in the following industries had the highest union membership rates: utilities (25.6 percent), transportation (19.6 percent), telecommunications (14.4 percent) and construction (14.1 percent).
  • Public sector employees in local government had the highest membership rate at 40.8 percent, including heavily unionized occupations such as teachers, police officers and firefighters.
  • Full-time wage and salary workers who were union members had higher median weekly earnings of $950, while non-union employees had median weekly earnings of $750.
  • Men had a higher union membership rate (11.9 percent) than women (10.5 percent).
  • States with the highest union membership rates were New York (24.4 percent), Alaska (23.1 percent) and Hawaii (22.1 percent). States with the lowest rates were North Carolina (3.0 percent), Arkansas (3.5 percent) and Mississippi and South Carolina (3.7 percent each).
  • Over half of all union members lived in just seven states: California (2.5 million), New York (2.0 million), Illinois (0.9 million), Pennsylvania (0.7 million), Michigan (0.6 million), New Jersey (0.6 million) and Ohio (0.6 million).