Number of unionized workers in U.S. grows

Union membership grew slightly in the United States in 2011, signaling an end to the steep declines of recent years.

The number of unionized workers increased about 50,000 to just under 14.8 million last year, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday.

It was the first annual gain in membership since 2008.

"It is telling that as our country begins to recover the jobs lost during the Great Recession, good union jobs are beginning to come back," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Recent hiring by Detroit's automakers and their suppliers contributed to the increase, but the percentage of workers represented by a union in the United States is still falling.

The percentage of the overall work force represented by unions fell slightly last year to 11.8 percent from 11.9 percent in 2010 — the lowest percentage since the Great Depression.

Unions representing government workers experienced a substantial decline in 2011, shedding some 61,000 members as state and local agencies cut back to cope with budget shortfalls. But private-sector unions gained 110,000 workers. Most of those gains came in the construction and health care industries, but a resurgent automobile industry also contributed to that total.

Michigan alone added 44,000 union jobs last year — more than any other state besides Florida, which added 68,000. And industry analysts say 2012 looks even more promising for the United Auto Workers.

"As the Detroit Three add workers, the UAW adds members," said Kristin Dziczek, a labor expert at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "They should be seeing a gain this year, too."

But she noted that UAW President Bob King has acknowledged his union needs to convince workers at foreign-owned auto plants to join, too.

"There's a limit to how much they can grow with their current employers," Dziczek said. "Organizing remains a critical pillar."

So far, the UAW's efforts to organize foreign-owned factories have enjoyed little success.

Michigan may be adding union jobs, but it also has a growing right-to-work movement that seeks new limits on the ability of unions to organize.

Union membership fell most sharply in New York, down 53,000. New York remains the most heavily unionized state at 24 percent, while North Carolina has the lowest union rate at 2.9 percent.

Among full-time wage and salary workers, the median weekly earnings of union members was $938, compared with $729 for nonunion workers, the bureau reported.

"The devastating losses from 2009 and 2010 have stopped, and that's got to be good news for the labor movement," said John Schmitt, a senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

Union membership has declined steadily from its peak of about a third of all workers in the 1950s and about 20 percent in 1983.

The losses have been especially steep in private industry with the loss of manufacturing jobs that traditionally are heavily unionized.

The UAW says it has about 390,000 active members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico — a big decline from the more than 1.5 million in 1979.

bhoffman@detnews.com

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The Associated Press contributed