
Union Membership Declines in 2016
In a release dated January 26, 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that union membership in the private sector workforce fell from 6.7% to 6.4% in 2016, and overall union membership dropped from 11.1% to 10.7%. According to the report, in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data is available, the overall union membership rate was 20.1%. The percentage of unionized workers has steadily decreased since that time. This decline can be attributed, in part, t