Union membership slips nationally, grows in isles

Union membership in Hawaii rose in 2012 even as the unionization rate declined nationally.

Union members accounted for 21.6 percent of Hawaii’s workforce last year, up from 21.5 percent in 2001, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Total union membership in Hawaii rose by 3,000 workers to 116,000.

Hawaii’s 2012 unionization rate was the third highest in the country. New York topped the list at 23.2 percent, followed by Alaska at 22.4 percent. North Carolina had the lowest rate at 2.9 percent.

Hawaii was one of 16 states and the District of Columbia where the rate of union membership rose in 2012.

The rate fell in 33 states and was unchanged in two others.

The average unionization rate nationally fell to 11.3 percent, the lowest level since the 1930s, from 11.8 percent. The national decline in membership was led by losses among public sector workers in cash-strapped states, cities, counties and towns.

Union membership fell by about 400,000 workers to 14.4 million, according to the BLS. More than half the loss, about 234,000, came from government workers, including teachers, firefighters and public administrators.

Unions nationwide also saw losses in the private sector even as the economy created 1.8 million new jobs in 2012. That membership rate fell to 6.6 percent from 6.9 percent, a troubling sign for the future of organized labor, as job growth generally has taken place at nonunion companies.

Union membership was 13.2 percent in 1935 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act. Labor’s ranks peaked in the 1950s, when about 1 of every 3 workers was in a union. By 1983, roughly 20 percent of U.S. workers were union members.

Among full-time wage and salary workers, union members in 2012 had median weekly earnings of $943, while those who were not union members earned $742.

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Star-Advertiser reporter Alan Yonan Jr. contributed to this report