Last month, the AFL-CIO split, with more than 4 million members of the Teamsters union, the Service Employees International Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers union disaffiliating themselves from the labor federation.
About 1 in 10 Americans currently say they belong to a labor union. A review of historical Â鶹´«Ã½AV Poll data shows that represents a decrease from the 1940s and 1950s, when roughly one in six belonged to a union. Current polling shows that union membership is higher among government workers than among private-sector or nonprofit employees, among middle-aged Americans than among younger adults or senior citizens, among men than among women, and in middle-income households than among higher-income or lower-income households. Union membership is lower in the South than in other regions across the country.
Membership Trends
Since the 1940s, Â鶹´«Ã½AV has asked Americans whether they belong to a labor union. An analysis of the results to this question at selected points in time since the mid-1940s shows that reported membership in unions has held steady for the past 20 years, but it is slightly lower now than it was from the mid-1940s through the mid-1970s. The following analysis is based on yearly averages of self-reported union membership on a decade-by-decade basis over the past 60 years.
It is important to note that Â鶹´«Ã½AV's reported estimates of union membership are slightly lower than the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, mostly attributable to the fact that Â鶹´«Ã½AV has historically asked this question of all Americans and the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures wage and salary workers.
The trend in union membership shows a slight, gradual decline over the past 60 years. In 1945, an average of 14% of Americans surveyed that year said they belonged to a labor union. Union membership was essentially the same in 1955, with an average of 15% of Americans reporting membership that year.
But then, self-reported membership began to decline gradually. In 1965 and 1975, 13% of Americans said they belonged to a union. In 1985, the average fell to 10%. These results have shown no change in Â鶹´«Ã½AV Polls conducted in 1997 and 2005. (Â鶹´«Ã½AV did not include its labor union question polls conducted in 1995 and 1996, so the results from 1997 were used in this analysis.)
Who's a Member?
To examine union members more closely, Â鶹´«Ã½AV aggregated the results of its past five August surveys* that asked this question. The results show some interesting differences among segments of the population.
Among all adults who say they are employed full time or part time, 12% report that they belong to a labor union. Government employees are substantially more likely to be union members than are employees of private companies or nonprofit organizations. Roughly a third of government employees (31%) belong to a labor union. This compares with 12% of employees of nonprofit organizations and 8% of employees working for private businesses.
Americans who live in the South are less likely than those living elsewhere in the country to belong to a labor union. Only 4% of Southerners say they are members, while 10% of Westerners, 11% of Easterners, and 11% of Midwesterners report membership.
About one in eight adults between the ages of 30 and 64 say they are union members. This is significantly higher than it is among 18- to 29-year-olds, of whom only 4% report membership, and among those aged 65 and older, 5% of whom are members.
Americans in middle-income households are slightly more likely than those in higher-income households and lower-income households to belong to a union. Only 5% of those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year belong to a labor union. This compares with 12% among those living households earning between $30,000 and $75,000 per year and 9% among those earning $75,000 or more per year.
Men are twice as likely as women to report being in a union, by a 12% to 6% margin. The results among employed men and women show little difference, with 13% of men and 10% of women saying they belong to a union.
Republicans, at 6%, are slightly less likely than Democrats (10%) or independents (10%) to say they belong to labor unions.
The data also show some slight variations by education level. Thirteen percent of those with postgraduate educations belong to a labor union, most likely teachers or college professors. This compares with 7% of college graduates, 10% of those with some college education, and 7% of those with a high school diploma or less.
*Results are based on in-person telephone interviews with at least 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
