1997 Union Members — 1998-01-30

The share of workers who were union members continued to decline in 1997, the U.S. Department of Labor�s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Union members accounted for 14.1 percent of wage and salary employment in 1997, down from 14.5 percent in 1996. The union membership rate has fallen steadily from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available. About three-fifths of the 16.1 million union members in 1997 were in private nonagricultural industries, where they constituted 9.8 percent of wage and salary employment. About 6.7 million union members worked in government (federal, state, and local), accounting for 37.2 percent of government employment. Among the private nonagricultural industries, transportation and public utilities had the highest unionization rate (26.0 percent), followed by construction (18.6 percent). Manufacturing and mining also had above- average unionization rates, at 16.3 and 13.9 percent, respectively.