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Michigan Lost Union Members During Year of GM Labor Strike

Michigan Lost Union Members During Year of GM Labor Strike

(Bloomberg) -- Michigan, where General Motors Co. workers launched a contentious strike last year to secure better wages, saw union membership fall by nearly a percentage point in 2019 -- a larger drop than the U.S. as a whole.

The share of workers belonging to unions in Michigan fell to 13.6% from 14.5% in 2018, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. New York workers had the highest union membership rate after Hawaii -- though at 21% of the workforce it was the lowest on record.

Across the U.S., unionized workers fell slightly to 10.3%, from 10.5% in 2018, to an overall number of 14.6 million. Membership has fallen by almost half since the bureau began tracking the data in 1983, when 20.1% of workers were represented by organization labor nationally.

Michigan Lost Union Members During Year of GM Labor Strike

General Motors employees represented by the United Auto Workers voted for a new labor agreement in October, ending a nearly six-week strike. The longest automotive walkout in 50 years involved 48,000 workers and cost the carmaker about $2 billion. The same month, Chicago teachers ended an 11-day walkout after reaching a deal on salaries with the district.

More than half of all union members live in just seven U.S. states, most of them reliably Democrat. But two battleground states -- Ohio and Pennsylvania -- also claim significant union membership.

The data show that despite a 2018 legal setback when the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to require public sector employees pay “fair share” fees to cover the cost of collective bargaining, membership levels have seen relatively minor changes in recent years.

By sector, union member is strongest among local government workers where membership fell to 39.4% from 40.3% in 2018. In contrast, a record low 6.2% of private sector workers are members of a union. Private-sector industries with high unionization rates included utilities (23.4%), transportation and warehousing (16.1%), and telecommunications (14.1%).

Michigan Lost Union Members During Year of GM Labor Strike

The wage gap between non-union and union wages have averaged about $200 per week for the last dozen years.

Michigan Lost Union Members During Year of GM Labor Strike

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Tanzi in Washington at atanzi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah McGregor at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net, Anita Sharpe

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