UCLA: U.S. union rates up substantially in 2008 for first time since 1970s, study shows

[Omaha Steve]

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/u-s-union-memberships-up-substantially-56265.aspx

By
Meg Sullivan
| 8/31/2008 12:01:00 AM

Buoyed by a rising tide in California in general and Southern California in particular, U.S. unionization levels rose substantially this year, defying a decades-long trend of decline, according to a report by UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.


"The State of the Unions in 2008: A Profile of Union Membership in Los Angeles, California and the Nation" shows unionization rates nationwide rising half a percentage point over the 2007 level, to 12.6 percent of all U.S. civilian workers in 2008. The rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point between 2006 and 2007. Prior to that, the last time U.S. unionization rates registered an increase was in 1979.


"This is good news for organized labor," said Ruth Milkman, lead author of the report and outgoing director of the UCLA labor institute. "It shows that despite an extremely hostile environment, unions can grow."


Milkman and UCLA sociology graduate student Bongoh Kye analyzed U.S. Current Population Survey data on union membership for California, Los Angeles and the nation. They report unionization rates by race, immigration status, gender, age and education for the first six months of 2008. This year's report and earlier such studies of unionization data going back to 1996 are available at www.irle.ucla.edu/research/unionmembership.html.


According to the report, in the first half of 2008, the number of U.S. workers on the membership rolls of labor unions increased by 583,300 over the 2007 average.


Fueling the nationwide increase was the recent growth in unionization in California, which currently accounts for 16 percent of all the nation's union members, more than any other state. California's unionization rate in 2008 is 17.8 percent, up from 16.7 percent in 2007 and 15.7 percent in 2006.

FULL story at link.

[spag68]

1. Unions

And yet the rethugs still insist that with 12% of the workforce, unions are responsible for all the inflation here. Further unions are a millstone around every honest businessman, and should be abolished. I've been fighting this crap all my adult life, and the worst part is non union folks don't realize they also get Benefit's when a union worker gets a new raise.Mostly they can't even explain why they are against unions, they just are.

[Stellabella]

2. Years of repuke ruin will do that to you.

As workers get more and more beaten down, the unions will do better and better.