2020-01-30 08:00:00
Unions in the US have been shrinking for decades. Now the Democrats are vying for their favor in the presidential election campaign. Trump got a surprising number of votes from unionists in 2016.
In September 2019, 49,000 United Auto Workers union members went on strike at General Motors. At 40 days, it was to be the longest strike in fifty years.
Matt Rourke / AP
America’s economy is growing and more and more people are finding jobs. But the trade unions are not affected by this upswing. Union density in 2019 was the lowest since statistics began in 1983. Still 10.3% of all American wage and wage workers are members of trade unions. That is 14.6 million people. This proportion has halved since 1983 and is also low by international comparison. The decline is even more dramatic if you only look at the private sector: almost forty years ago, every sixth employee was represented by a trade union; most recently it was only every sixteenth. This sharp decline is often cited as a reason for stagnant middle-class wages in America.
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