By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI) - There wasn't a lot of growth in the labor movement population in 2017. But of what there was, it was positive.

Overall, the nation’s unions grew by 262,000 members last year, to 14.8 million, while union density stayed at 10.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Jan. 19.

Union density in the private sector edged up 0.1 percent, to 6.5 percent, while public sector density stayed the same at 34.4 percent. There were 7.2 million public sector unionists last year, up 96,000 from the year before, and 7.601 million private sector unionists, up 166,000.

The AFL-CIO viewed the figures positively. It said the increase in union numbers “reflects critical organizing victories across a range of industries, which have reaped higher wages, better benefits, and a more secure future for working people around the country."

Said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: “In the face of a challenging year, the power of working people is on the rise. Together, we organized historic new unions, stood up to powerful corporations, and won higher wages. But today’s data is more than numbers on a page, it’s a growing movement of working people that can’t be measured as easily. When more union members fill the halls of power when wages rise and inequality shrinks, and when a growing number of people see that we can and will change the rules of this economy – that’s when you’ll know unions are on the rise.”

The union growth record in right to work states is mixed, BLS calculated, though it warned that below the national level, survey samples are smaller and more open to error. Union density rose in Michigan and South Carolina declined slightly in Missouri – where a RTW law is stalled by a successful union-launched petition to put it on the ballot – and dropped sharply in Indiana, which got a RTW law the same year as Michigan, 2012.

Despite its RTW law, Michigan had the second-largest increase among the state in union density, +1.2 percentage points, to 15.6 percent in 2017. Hawaii had the largest percentage increase, +1.4 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were 658,000 union members in Michigan last year, compared to 606,000 (14.4 percent of the workforce) in 2016.

“This is great news for Michigan’s working families and great news for our economy,” said Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO. “We need the power in numbers of unions more than ever to protect things our families need, like affordable health care, good schools, and Social Security and Medicare. Now it’s time for our elected officials in Lansing and Washington to get the message, stop attacking working people, and start working together to protect the freedom of working people to negotiate together for a fair return on our work. That’s how we’ll build an economy in Michigan that works for everyone, not just the wealthy.”

The biggest drops in union density from 2016-17 were in Iowa, Kentucky and Indiana, which all dropped 1.5 percent.

Unionists’ wage advantage over their non-union colleagues grew again, BLS said.

There's a built-in union advantage bolstering pay: Median weekly earnings were $860 for each U.S. worker in 2017, the survey showed. But the median for unionists was $1,041, compared to $829 for non-unionists. The median is the point where half the group is above the figure and half below.

And the wage gap between working men and women was, as usual, smaller for unionists. The median pay for a working woman nationwide is 80 cents per dollar for a man in the same job. But the median for the unionized working woman ($970) was 88 percent of the median ($1,102) for the unionized man. A median non-union working woman earned $746 weekly, 88 percent of what the union woman earned and two-thirds of the male unionist’s median.

The public-sector unionist numbers could crash starting later this year. That’s because the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Feb. 10 on Janus v AFSCME District Council 31, a case pushed by the radical right National Right to Work Committee, and its dissident Illinois worker Mark Janus, to make every state and local government worker a “free rider.”

Unions expect the five GOP-nominated Supreme Court justices to throw out a 43-year-old precedent and make all state and local public workers right-to-work. There were 576,000 such “free riders” – represented by unions but not members – in state and local governments last year, the BLS survey said.

As usual, New York (23.8 percent) and Hawaii (21.3 percent) were the most-unionized states. Unions in New York added 75,000 members, to 2.017 million, and Hawaii’s unions added 10,000, to 129,000.

South Carolina, which has a former union-buster as state labor commissioner and whose state government has hated unions for decades, finished dead last, again, in union density, at 2.6 percent (52,000 members). Membership numbers were unchanged.

South Carolina's record was so bad that the second-worst state, North Carolina, which overtook its sister state last year, widened its lead in union density. The Tar Heel state unions added 16,000 members, to 145,000, and density rose from 3 percent to 3.4 percent.

BLS said union members still are concentrated in the Northeast, the Great Lakes and the Pacific Coast. In sheer numbers, California topped the list at 2.491 million (-16,000 from 2016), followed by New York, Illinois (827,000, +15,000), Pennsylvania (665,000, -20,000), Michigan (658,000, +52,000), Ohio (635,000, +18,000) and New Jersey (630,000, -14,000).

In Ohio, union density ticked up a tenth of a point from 2016 to 2017, from 12.4 percent to 12.4 percent. Ohio had 635,000 union members in 2017, up 18,000 from the year before dues-payers.”