Bay Area private sector workers achieve highest unionization rate since 1999

Bay Area union membership was on the rise in 2007, driven by increased unionization in the private sector.

An estimated 57,000 additional private-sector workers chose to join unions last year, bringing the private-sector unionization rate for the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland region up to 12.1%: the highest rate this decade.

Combining the public and private sectors, 18.2% of all workers in the Bay Area were covered by a union contract in 2007, up from 17.1% in 2006.

The United States as a whole saw an uptick from 12.0% to 12.1%: a small increase, but notable as the first recorded growth in the nation's unionization rate since the 1970s.

However, union membership in the Bay Area -- and the United States -- remains near historic lows following decades of decline. In the 1960s, about 30% of workers belonged to unions. Today, union coverage has been cut to the rock-bottom rate of 12%, despite the fact that survey after survey shows most U.S. workers want a union.(Continued...)

Although a majority of nonunion workers say they would vote for union representation, few ever get that opportunity, due to employer intimidation combined with ever-more-regressive federal labor laws that block workers from exercising their right to choose a union. This assault on workers intensified under the Bush administration, with the appointment of a strongly anti-labor National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Secretary of Labor.

The New York Times writes:

There is little doubt that American workers need unions. Wages today are almost 10 percent lower than they were in 1973, after accounting for inflation. The share of national income devoted to workers' wages and benefits is at its lowest since the late-1960s, while the share going to profits has surged. The decline in unionization has been a big part of the reason that workers have lost so much ground.

Source: Union membership data for the SJ-SF-Oakland region is from the Union Membership and Coverage Database, http://www.unionstats.com/, constructed by Barry T. Hirsch (Georgia State University) and David A. Macpherson (Florida State University). All unionization data used originates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.