• grandepequeno [he/him]
    ·
    1 month ago

    Union membership as a percentage of the workforce

    Yep that's the right metric, even if absolute numbers are up in relative terms to the working population it's still incredibly low.

    • Barx [none/use name]
      ·
      1 month ago

      The nerds call it union density and its been trending down for decades, unfortunately.

    • BashfulBob [none/use name]
      ·
      1 month ago

      Both numbers are important, as "total union membership rising/falling" is useful to know if efforts to expand membership have been successful.

      If a sudden rash of unemployment in an unorganized sector of the economy caused the total unionized percentage to surge, I wouldn't consider that a good thing. The ideological cause of unionization isn't inherently served by arbitrary fluctuations in the overall employment pool. Now, if Microsoft lays off 10% of its workforce and there's a sudden rush towards labor organizing as a response, sure... but I haven't seen that happening.