Union Membership In Arkansas Falls Less Than National Average

Union membership in Arkansas fell 6.38% and nationwide membership fell 12.3%, according to information released Friday (Jan. 20) by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Arkansas, union membership in 2010 totaled 44,000, down from 47,000 in 2009. Union membership was 4% of total employment in Arkansas during 2010, down from 4.2% in 2009.

The BLS data also shows that 59,000 Arkansas workers were represented by a union in 2010, up from 55,000 in 2009.

In 2010, the union membership rate — the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union — was 11.9%, down from 12.3% a year earlier. In terms of union representation, 16.3 million wage and salary workers were represented by a union in 2010. This group includes both union members (14.7 million) and workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union contract (1.6 million). Government employees (783,000) comprised about half of the 1.6 million workers who were covered by a union contract but were not members of a union.

The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1%, and there were 17.7 million union workers.

The data on union membership were collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 households that obtains information on employment and unemployment.

KEY FINDINGS
• In 2010, among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median usual weekly earnings of $917, while those who were not represented by unions had median weekly earnings of $717.

• In 2010, 7.6 million public sector employees belonged to a union, compared with 7.1 million union workers in the private sector. Also, the union membership rate for public sector workers (36.2%) was substantially higher than the rate for private sector workers (6.9%).

• Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 42.3%. This group includes workers in heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers, and fire fighters.

• Private sector industries with high unionization rates included transportation and utilities (21.8%), telecommunications (15.8%), and construction (13.1%). In 2010, low unionization rates occurred in agriculture and related industries (1.6%) and in financial activities (2%).

• Workers in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rate at 37.1%.

• In 2010, among major race and ethnicity groups, black workers were more likely to be union members (13.4%) than workers who were white (11.7%), Asian (10.9%), or Hispanic (10.0%). Black men had the highest union membership rate (14.8%), while Asian men had the lowest rate (9.4%).

• The union membership rate was higher for men (12.6%) than for women (11.1%) in 2010. The gap between their rates has narrowed considerably since 1983, when the rate for men was about 10 percentage points higher than the rate for women. Between 1983 and 2010, the union membership rate for men declined by almost half (12.1 percentage points), while the rate for women declined by 3.5 percentage points.

• Among states, New York had the highest union membership rate (24.2%) and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.2%).  Arkansas tied for the second lowest rate of workers with union membership at 4.0%.

• By age, the union membership rate was highest among 55- to 64-year-old workers (15.7%). The lowest union membership rate occurred among those ages 16 to 24 (4.3%).

Michael Tilley with our content partner, The City Wire, filed this report. He can be reached by email at [email protected].