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.
Yep that's the right metric, even if absolute numbers are up in relative terms to the working population it's still incredibly low.
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.
The nerds call it union density and its been trending down for decades, unfortunately.