Good news for the workers of America…the number of decent people forced to pay bribes in order to work, in the private sector has tanked. In 33 years, union membership in the private sector has gone from 20% to 11%. We now have 26 States where workers can not be bullied and their pay checks stolen by the extortionist unions. On the reverse, if you work for government in many State you still must pay a bribe to be a cop. A teacher or a janitor. Theft of money is the goal of unions—using the money to buy elections is the purpose of the money.
“It was a period that saw Gov. Scott Walker beat back rules around labor organizing and membership dues. Similar efforts in Indiana resulted in a 2.4 percentage-point slide, while Ohio (down 3.7 percentage points) and Michigan (5.3 percentage points) also ranked among the largest decliners.
New York, the state with the largest ratio of union members as a percentage of its total workforce (24.7 percent), reported a 1.4 percentage point decline over the same decade. At 2.1 percent, South Carolina’s ratio of union membership ranked as the country’s lowest, having dropped by 0.2 percentage points between 2005 and 2015.
The longer-term trend is even gloomier for labor unions. Membership as a percentage of the entire U.S. labor force fell to 11.1 percent in 2015 versus 20.1 percent in 1983. In total, the United States had 14.8 million union members in 2015, down 17 percent from 1983. At the same time, the total number of wage and salary workers in the U.S. increased 54 percent to 133.7 million people, according to BLS.”
Freedom for workers is on the move in America—good news for the economy, families and teaching our kids that government protected theft (support of unions) is wrong.
As Trump takes aim at unions, labor’s clout sags in membership rolls
Craig M. Douglas, Business Journal, 12/12/16
Labor unions have been among the most vocal critics of Donald Trump and his expanding team of economic advisers, sounding warnings over the president-elect’s positions on a range of issues and promising to stymie his policy agenda when warranted.
Those comments, however, come as federal data indicate that the influence of labor unions — at least when it comes to membership — is waning. A recent analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that union membership as a percentage of the entire labor force declined in 24 states in 2015 compared to the year before, while some 34 states and the District of Columbia were down from where they were a decade earlier.
States with some of the largest declines were concentrated in the U.S. Rust Belt. Wisconsin’s union membership as a percentage of its total labor force dropped 7.8 percentage points over the past decade, from 16.1 percent in 2005 to 8.3 percent in 2015. It was a period that saw Gov. Scott Walker beat back rules around labor organizing and membership dues. Similar efforts in Indiana resulted in a 2.4 percentage-point slide, while Ohio (down 3.7 percentage points) and Michigan (5.3 percentage points) also ranked among the largest decliners.
New York, the state with the largest ratio of union members as a percentage of its total workforce (24.7 percent), reported a 1.4 percentage point decline over the same decade. At 2.1 percent, South Carolina’s ratio of union membership ranked as the country’s lowest, having dropped by 0.2 percentage points between 2005 and 2015.
The longer-term trend is even gloomier for labor unions. Membership as a percentage of the entire U.S. labor force fell to 11.1 percent in 2015 versus 20.1 percent in 1983. In total, the United States had 14.8 million union members in 2015, down 17 percent from 1983. At the same time, the total number of wage and salary workers in the U.S. increased 54 percent to 133.7 million people, according to BLS.
Trump’s latest tangle with union members involved Chuck Jones, the head of United Steel Workers 1999. The incoming president last week unleashed a torrent of criticism and defensive jibes in response to accusations that he overstated the benefits from his negotiations to keep Indianapolis-based Carrier Corp. from relocating more than 1,000 jobs from Indiana to Mexico. Trump aired most of his grievances via social media, calling Jones’ representation of union members“terrible” and part of a broader labor agenda driving U.S. companies out of the country.
The back-and-forth came just weeks after a bare-knuckles election cycle that saw Trump repeatedly lock horns with labor leaders over a range of topics, from his support of charter schools to his practices as a real estate developer.
A Wall Street Journal analysis found that labor unions spent $110 million in support of political candidates in the recent election cycle. That was up 38 percent from the 2012 cycle, with the vast majority of that support going to Trump’s main opponent, Hillary Clinton, as well as other Democratic-party causes.
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