U.S. union membership rates fell to a fresh record low in 2023 despite it being a year of headline-grabbing organized labor strikes from the Rustbelt to Hollywood and some continued organizing successes at companies such as Starbucks, Reuters reported. The union membership rate fell to 10.0% from what had already been a record-low 10.1% in 2022, the Labor Department said on Tuesday in an annual census of the U.S. organized labor landscape. The number of union members, meanwhile, ticked higher for a second year, but the fact that overall employment among wage and salary workers rose faster resulted in a further decline in the membership rate. The membership rate among private-sector workers was unchanged at 6%, also a record low. The rate for government workers, which is more than five times the private-sector rate, slid to 32.5%, the lowest on record, from 33.1% in 2022.
