This union is weak: labor membership declines.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: Citings - Brief article

UNION MEMBERSHIP took a hit in 2012, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). From 2011 to 2012 the share of employees who belong to unions dropped from 11.8 percent to 113 percent. The BLS calculates that 14.4 million working Americans are members of unions.

One out of every five American workers belonged to a union when the BLS began collecting membership data in 1983. But the face of labor has changed. In manufacturing, a sector with traditionally high union membership, the total number of jobs has dropped from 18 million in 1984 to 11.9 million in 2012. But even among the remaining manufacturing jobs, the union membership rate has dropped.

Union leaders have been fighting the spread of fight-to-work laws, which prohibit requiring union representation or union fees as a condition of employment, in an effort to maintain their numbers. Michigan passed fight-to-work legislation in 2012. As unions sued to block the law, a memo from the...