In 2011, the number of workers belonging to a union was 163,000 in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that union members accounted for 4.6 percent of wage and salary workers in Virginia in 2011, the same as in 2010. In 1989, the first year for which comparable state data are available, the union membership rate for the Commonwealth was 9.1 percent. Since then, Virginia’s union membership rate has remained lower than that for the United States, where union members accounted for 11.8 percent of employed wage and salary workers in 2011. (See chart 1 .)

In addition to Virginia’s 163,000 wage and salary workers who were union members in 2011, another 35,000 workers were represented by a union on their main job or were covered by an employee association or contract while not being union members themselves. (See table A.) Nationwide, about 14.8 million wage and salary workers were union members in 2011 and about 1.5 million wage and salary workers were not affiliated with a union but had jobs covered by a union contract.

In 2011, 29 states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below the U.S average, 11.8 percent, while 21 states had higher than average rates. (See table 1.) Seven states, all in the South, had union membership rates below 5.0 percent, with North Carolina having the lowest, 2.9 percent. The next lowest rates were recorded in South Carolina (3.4 percent), Georgia (3.9 percent), Arkansas (4.2 percent), Louisiana (4.5 percent), and Tennessee and Virginia (4.6 percent each).

Twelve states had union membership rates above 15 percent. Of these states, four were located in the Northeast, three in the Midwest, and the remaining five bordered the Pacific Ocean. (See chart 2.) New York had the highest rate (24.1 percent), followed by Alaska (22.1 percent), Hawaii (21.5 percent), and Washington (19.0 percent).

Over half of the 14.8 million union members in the United States lived in just seven states (California, 2.4 million; New York, 1.9 million; Illinois, 0.9 million; Pennsylvania, 0.8 million; Michigan, 0.7 million; and New Jersey and Ohio, 0.6 million each), though these states accounted for only one-third of wage and salary employment nationally.

State union membership levels depend on both the union membership rate and the employment level. For example, despite having about 1.0 million fewer wage and salary workers statewide, Maryland had almost twice as many union members as Virginia. Similarly, North Carolina and Hawaii had comparable numbers of union members (105,000 and 113,000, respectively), though North Carolina’s wage and salary employment level (3.6 million) was about seven times that of Hawaii (525,000).

Technical Note

The estimates in this release are obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which provides the basic information on the labor force, employment, and unemployment.  The survey is conducted monthly for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau from a scientifically selected national sample of about 60,000 households. The union membership and earnings data are tabulated from one-quarter of the CPS monthly sample and are limited to wage and salary workers. All self-employed workers are excluded.

Union membership data, particularly for levels, are not strictly comparable with data for earlier years because of the introduction of updated population controls used in the CPS. For technical documentation and related information, including reliability of the CPS estimates, see www.bls.gov/cps/documentation.htm.

For personal assistance or further information on union membership, as well as other Bureau data, contact the Mid-Atlantic Information Office at 215-597-3282 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200, TDD message referral phone number: 1-800-877-8339.

Definitions

The principal definitions used in this release are described briefly below.

Union members.  Members of a labor union or an employee association similar to a union.

Represented by unions.  Union members, as well as workers who have no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union or an employee association contract.

Wage and salary workers.  Workers who receive wages, salaries, commissions, tips, payment in kind, or piece rates.  The group includes employees in both the private and public sectors, but, for the purposes of the union membership and earnings series, excludes all self-employed persons, regardless of whether or not their businesses are incorporated.