When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released new union membership data on Wednesday, it noted the impact of the coronavirus pandemic up and down on numbers – including that “the start of the pandemic in 2020 has led to an increase in union membership across the country (up to 10 , 8% of employees) due to a disproportionately large reduction in the number of non-union workers compared to a decrease in the number of union members. He concluded that the reduction of the national rate in 2021 (up to 10.3%) “reflects a large increase in the number of non-union workers and a decrease in the number of union workers.”
As for New Jersey in 2021, it ranked fifth in terms of union membership among the states and the District of Columbia, with 16.2% (608,000) employees signed up. This was just above 16.1% of union membership in 2020 in Garden State. In addition, another 64,000 workers were represented last year by the union at their main job or covered by a workers ’association or contract, while they themselves are not union members.
Across the country last year, union membership was 14.0 million, with another 1.8 million non-union workers but whose jobs were covered by union contracts. The four states with higher union membership than New Jersey were Hawaii (22.4%), New York (22.2%), Washington (19%) and Pennsylvania (17.8%). The five states with the lowest levels of union membership in 2021 were South Carolina (1.7%), North Carolina (2.6%), Utah (3.5%), Tennessee (3.8%) and Arkansas (3 .9%).
