Labor union membership in Indiana drops below 10%
Source: Terre Haute Tribune-Star
As a percentage of the workforce, Hoosier labor union membership dropped to its lowest recorded level in 2012, according to figures released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Just 9.1 percent of Hoosier workers were members of unions last year, a drop of more than 2 percent from the year before, according to the BLS. This marks the first time since the government started tracking individual state data in 1989 that Indianas union workforce has fallen below 10 percent.
For Indiana this continues a steep, decades-long decline in the unionized workforce, a decline that has outpaced even the nationwide downward trend during the same period.
... It may be far too soon to forecast the death of organized labor, however. If economic and social inequality continues to expand in the U.S., union membership could grow, said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois. Typically, when that happens, you create conditions where people are willing to look for collective solutions, he said.
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