Union membership has been declining since 1983, and reached a historic low in 2024. There was a slight rise in 2020, but this has been attributed to union members being less likely to lose their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, the rate of union membership declined again to 9.9 percent. Despite this constant decline, the number of workers represented by a union increased in 2023.

A distinguishing feature of credit unions is the legal requirement that members share a common bond. This organizing principle recently became the focus of national attention when the Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress took opposite sides in a controversy regarding the number of common bonds (fields of membership) that could coexist within a single credit union. In this article, a model of credit union formation and consolidation is developed and simulated to examine the effects of common-bond restrictions on the performance of credit unions. The performance measures are based on participation rates among potential members and the operating costs of credit unions. Using a semiparametric econometric model and a large dataset drawn from federally-chartered occupational credit unions in 1996, the authors find that, for a given number of potential members, credit unions with multiple-group charters have higher participation rates. They also find that, for a given number of members, the operating costs of multiple-group credit unions are higher. Average operating costs at large credit unions, however, decrease as the number of members increases. The authors also find that local deposit-market concentration is related to participation rates and operating costs of credit unions.

The United States Department of Labor tells us that "Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."

This database of state-level union membership and coverage from 1983 to 2015 was originally compiled by Barry Hirsch (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) and David Macpherson (Department of Economics, Trinity University). The database, available at unionstats.com provides private and public sector labor union membership, coverage, and density estimates compiled from the monthly household Current Population Survey (CPS) using BLS methods.

Use of this data requires citation of the following paper which also includes a description of how the database was created: Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, "Union Membership and Coverage Database from the Current Population Survey: Note," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 2003, pp. 349-54. (PDF).

This study utilizes time-series data from 1897-2005 to explore the positive and negative effects of rivalry between labor unions. Utilizing econometric factors, it also investigates how competition from rival union federations and independent unions affects union density. Variables include counts of pro-labor and pro-management unfair labor practice cases adjudicated by the National Labor Relations Board, competitor union membership ratio and number ratio, the annual percentage change in union density, and the percentage change in the density of AFL/AFL-CIO membership. Other variables include the percentage of United States House members who belong to the Democratic Party, the percentage of popular votes in presidential elections that favored Socialist or Communist parties, core employment and unemployment, the consumer price index (CPI), and the labor union historical periods: Western Labor Union (WLU), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Trade Union Unity League (TUUL), Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and Change to Win (CTW).

Compared to other Western democracies, in the U.S. fewer people subjectively identify as working class historically and many working class individuals think of themselves as middle class. This likely has important political implications. We argue, however, that union membership can strengthen identification with the working class, through communications from leaders and interactions among members. Using General Social Survey data from five decades, we develop an original multi-indicator IRT-based measure of objective class status and find that union membership makes it more likely that individuals will identify as working class, across all objective class groups. Panel data analysis shows that union membership predicts future working class identification but that the opposite is not true, suggesting that these associations are causal. Finally, we show that identifying with the working rather than middle or upper class is associated with more support for redistribution and the welfare state.

Includes datasets, the Stata do file, and Supplemental material associated with this Politics & Gender manuscript.

In 2023, union members accounted for 4.3 percent of wage and salary workers in Virginia, compared with 3.7 percent in 2022,the union membership rate for the state was at its peak in 1992, when it averaged 9.3 percent, and at its low point in 2007 and 2022 at 3.7 percent.Nationwide, union members accounted for 10.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers in 2023. The rate was little changed from the previous year. Since 1989, when comparable state data became available, union membership rates in Virginia have been below the U.S. average union membership by at least 5 percentage points. Virginia had 176,000 union members in 2023. In addition to these members, another 50,000 wage and salary workers in Virginia were represented by a union on their main job or covered by an employee association or contract while not union members themselves.

Source: 6333.0 - Characteristics of Employment, Australia, August 2016

Union membership has been on the decline across all industries in the United States since 2000. While the transportation and warehousing industry is one of the most unionized industries in the U.S., it has also seen a significant decline in membership since the turn of the century. In 2023 the all-industry average amounted to six percent of workers, while 15.9 percent of transportation and warehousing workers were union members.

Number of employees by union status, North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and gender.

Labor union members are more likely to vote than their non-unionized counterparts, and when they do vote, are more likely to support the Democratic Party. However, a sizable minority of union members vote Republican. This is puzzling, given that the national Republican Party has long been hostile toward organized labor. Extant research has clearly demonstrated that union and non-union members differ in their voting behavior, but we know little about such variation among union members. I explore this latter phenomenon here, arguing that the frequency of workplace political discussion plays an important role in shaping how labor union members vote. I test this with data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES). Overall, I find that workplace discussion of politics is positively and significantly associated with the probability that labor union members vote Democrat. This appears to occur via a “learning” mechanism, in which greater workplace discussion of politics leads union members to recognize which candidate is more “pro-labor.” Overall, these findings help us to better understand the consequences of the workplace, political discussion, and the politics of American labor unions.

Graph and download economic data for Percentage Unemployed Among Trade Union Members for France (M08H4AFRM156NNBR) from Jun 1897 to Dec 1899 about trade union, France, percent, and unemployment.

Graph and download economic data for Employment Trade Union Members for Massachusetts (Q08007US000MAQ519NNBR) from Q1 1908 to Q4 1922 about trade union, MA, employment, and USA.

How do occupational credit unions set deposit rates? This article shows that the answer to this question depends on who actually makes business decisions in credit unions (who is in control), and whether local deposit market competition is important. It is not obvious who controls occupational credit unions. If the sponsor (the employer) is in control, then loans and deposits are priced to maximize the surplus received by all of the credit union's current and potential members (those eligible to join). If members are in control, then a group of members with a majority can maximize its own surplus. The group in control may include members whose primary purpose for joining the credit union is to borrow money or, alternatively, to lend money (make deposits). If local deposit-market competition is the dominant influence, then internal characteristics of the credit union won't matter at all. This study tests the sponsor-control, the member-control, and the market-control hypotheses against each other using a large sample of occupational credit unions observed in 1997. The results suggest that sponsors exercise effective control over occupational credit unions.

While union membership has been on the decline nationwide since 2000, the mining, quarrying, and oil and natural gas industry has seen a recent increase. The industry had relatively high rates of union membership compared with averages across all industries at the start of the century. In 2000, around nine percent of workers were members of unions compared to **** percent of industry workers. The rate spiked in 2022 after union membership in oil and gas reached an all-time low in 2019 and continued to increase to *** in 2024.

Scholars and political observers point to declining labor unions on the one hand, and rising white identity politics on the other, as profound changes in American politics. However, there has been little attention to the potential feedback between these forces. In this article, we investigate the role of union membership in shaping white racial attitudes. We draw upon research in history and American political development to generate a theory of interracial labor politics, in which union membership reduces racial resentment. Cross-sectional analyses consistently show that white union members have lower racial resentment and greater support for policies that benefit African Americans. More importantly, our panel analysis suggests that gaining union membership between 2010 and 2016 reduced racial resentment among white workers. The findings highlight the important role of labor unions in mass politics, and, more broadly, the importance of organizational membership for political attitudes and behavior.

Dataset from Ministry of Manpower. For more information, visit https://data.gov.sg/datasets/d_f0b6868ab1c4b2fb1ac9aa7f0e722e4f/view

The NCUA defines a minority depository institution (MDI) as a federally insured credit union in which a majority of its current members, its board of directors, and the community it services, as designated in its charter, fall within any of the eligible minority groups as described in Section 308 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989: any Black American, Asian American, Hispanic American, or Native American. Credit unions self-designate as MDIs by answering the minority questions on the CUOnline Profile. The NCUA encourages credit unions to determine whether they qualify for MDI certification. This resource allows users to identify those credit unions that meet the MDI criteria.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted a “right-to-work” (RTW) legal regime for the entire government workforce (Janus v. AFSCME). While many predict lower union membership, few have considered how Janus will challenge the overall cost-sharing strategy that unions use to ensure their affiliates’ organizational maintenance and survival. Using the National Education Association (NEA) as our empirical example, we develop and test a theory we call “financial solidarity,” which posits that union organizational maintenance hinges on the transfer of resources from affiliates in strong labor states to those in weaker labor states. We demonstrate that this system is in effect by showing that most NEA revenue originates from dues and fees paid by teachers in strong labor states and then by examining the causal effect of labor law retrenchment on affiliates’ reliance on their national union between 2005-2018. We find that NEA transfers an additional $6-10 dollars per member and is significantly more likely to make a political contribution in an affiliate’s state in the aftermath of retrenchment. These findings highlight that unions are maintained on an organizational model that relies on a balance of strong and weak state labor laws. By upending that equilibrium, Janus threatens to undermine the power of labor in American politics.

The table contains data on the number of members of FNV trade unions, CNV, MHP and Other Trade Unions. In the table, the data can be divided into: — gender; — age classes, — industry (no longer available from reporting year 2003); — size class trade unions (no longer available from reporting year 2005); — residential province and abroad (no longer available from reporting year 2005); — years

Data available from 1999. Information on the total number of members of trade unions is available on request by age, gender, province of residence, industry and size class available from 1973. The breakdown by industry is for the year 1973 by Standard Business Classification 1970 (SBI 1970), for the years 1975-1991 to SBI 1974 and for the years 1993-1997 to SBI 1993.

Frequency: Discontinued as of 1 November 2010.

Reason to stop: The breakdown of the data on the total number of members of trade unions by industry from 2003 onwards and by size class trade unions, provinces of residence and abroad no longer as of 2005 available. From 2005 onwards, only the spread by sex and age available.

The table is continued by table members of trade unions. Place in the theme tree:
Labour and Social Security/Labour market/Work movement and strikes.