Public Employee Press

The World of Work
A sign of hope

Union membership grew in 2007, the first time in a generation.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37’s national union is signing up new members at a rapid clip this year.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees added about 41,000 new workers in the first quarter of 2008. During 2007, AFSCME increased its membership by 48,000.

The union’s growth is the fastest in the AFL-CIO.

AFSCME’s increase comes as a small sign of hope exists that the nation’s labor movement may be starting to reverse its long-term decline and expand its ranks. Today, union membership, as a percentage of the labor force, is at its lowest point since before the Great Depression 75 years ago.

Last year, union membership increased by 311,000 to 15.7 million, according to a January report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As a percentage of the workforce, union membership rose from 12.0 percent in 2006 to 12.1 percent in 2007. Though membership remained basically flat, the uptick marked the largest membership increase since 1979.

AFCSME President Gerald W. McEntee said, “The BLS announcement that more workers are joining unions is good news for all Americans. AFSCME’s growth, which has been consistent even during challenging times, is now part of a broader trend that’s spreading through the union movement.”

The national union’s most recent major organizing victory occurred in April when more than 8,000 in-home child-care providers in Ohio voted to unionize. In addition to the workers in Ohio,AFSCME represents about 150,000 family child-care providers in California, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

At 35.9 percent, the unionization rate for public employees is nearly five times higher than that of workers in the private sector, where nearly 94 of every 100 employees are not in unions. In 2007, the median weekly earnings for unionized workers were $863, compared with $663 for nonunion workers.

At DC 37, the union has a campaign to sign up about 300 nonunion employees at the Central Park Conservancy. All told, the union has identified some 8,000 workers in the city as potential new members.

Edgar deJesus, DC 37’s interim organizing director, described the BLS statistics as a “glimmer of hope.”

A real turnaround in the labor movement will require a dramatic increase in the resources dedicated to organizing and a genuine new “culture of organizing” in the unions, he said.