In 2012, the number of workers belonging to a union was 159,000 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 4.4 percent of wage and salary workers in Virginia in 2012, compared to 4.6 percent in 2011. In 1989, the first year for which state data are available, the union membership rate for the Commonwealth was 9.1 percent before reaching a high of 9.3 percent in 1992. Since then, Virginia’s union membership rate has generally declined and remained lower than that for the United States. Nationally, union members accounted for 11.3 percent of employed wage and salary workers, down from 11.8 percent in 2011. (See chart 1 .)

In addition to Virginia’s 159,000 wage and salary workers who were union members in 2012, another 38,000 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 14.4 million wage and salary workers were union members in 2012 and about 1.6 million wage and salary workers were not affiliated with a union but had jobs covered by a union contract.

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below the national average of 11.3 percent in 2012. Eight of these states had union membership rates below 5.0 percent with North Carolina having the lowest, 2.9 percent. The next-lowest rates were recorded in Arkansas (3.2 percent) and South Carolina (3.3 percent). With the exception of Idaho, all eight states recording rates below 5.0 percent were located in the South. (See chart 2.)

In 2012, 19 states had union membership rates above the U.S. average, of which 9 had rates above 15.0 percent. (See table 1.) Of the nine states with the highest rates, three were located in the Northeast, one in the Midwest, and the remaining five bordered the Pacific Ocean. New York had the highest rate at 23.2 percent, followed by Alaska (22.4 percent) and Hawaii (21.6 percent).

About half of the 14.4 million union members in the U.S. lived in just seven states (California, 2.5 million; New York, 1.8 million; Illinois, 0.8 million; Pennsylvania, 0.7 million; and Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio, 0.6 million each), though these states accounted for only about 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 121,000 more union members as Virginia. North Carolina and Hawaii had comparable numbers of union members (112,000 and 116,000, respectively), though North Carolina’s wage and salary employment level (3.8 million) was more than seven times that of Hawaii (537,000).

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.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone:  (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service:  (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.