By Michael S. Derby
NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. union membership levels declined slightly to record lows last year, a government report said on Tuesday, and now organized labor faces fresh challenges from President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Some 9.9% of American workers were represented by unions, down from 10% in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in an annual release. Just over 14 million U.S. workers were members of unions in a total work force of 145 million, the report noted in a release that also said that the union membership rate for government workers was five times higher than for private sector workers.
Overall union membership levels have sunk well below the peak of 20.1% in 1983, the first year for which data was available. American labor unions have been in decline for decades as much manufacturing moved overseas or automated and as organizing grew more difficult in some parts of the nation.
The report noted that those who are in unions are paid better than others, with non-union workers having median weekly earnings that were 85% of organized workers. Government data said the strongest levels of union membership were found in education and protective service-related work. Men and black workers were more likely to be organized relative to women and other racial groups.
New York and Hawaii had the highest levels of union membership while North Carolina, South Dakota and South Carolina had the lowest.
In the report government workers remain strongly represented in the ranks of organized labor, with the percentage of employees who are organized standing at 32.2%, versus 2023’s 32.5%. The percentage of federal employees in unions rose to 25.37% in 2024 from 25.1% in 2023.
The strong level of federal government union representation, and organized labor in general, is likely to face turbulence from Trump, who campaigned on a strong deregulatory push for businesses. He has also called for a huge overhaul for government workers amid rolling back civil service protections and the hybrid work arrangements that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, Trump acted to remove a Democratic member of the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, although that official said the president’s action was illegal. The removal of this labor official means the NLRB can no longer meet and cannot offer decision in even routine labor issues. Trump also fired the NLRB’s general counsel on Monday.
The notion of stagnation in overall union membership was challenged by the labor group the AFL-CIO. In a statement, its president Liz Shuler said the numbers of union elections had doubled since 2021, with 1,800 coming last year. “Many of these victories are not reflected in the numbers released today because employers are exploiting a broken system to delay bargaining a first contract,” Shuler said.
Organized labor got a shot in the arm during the pandemic and its aftermath amid historically tight labor markets, which helped expand union pushes into service sector work. On Monday, a Philadelphia-area Whole Foods grocery store saw its workers unionize, the first time ever for the Amazon-owned company.
(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)
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