US union membership rate hits all-time low despite campaigns

By DEE-ANN DURBIN
AP Business Writer

The U.S. union membership rate reached an all-time low last year. That’s despite high-profile unionization campaigns at Starbucks, Amazon and other companies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday that union members fell to 10.1% of the overall U.S. workforce in 2022. That was down slightly from 10.3% in 2021. The number of workers who belong to a union actually increased by 1.9%, but that failed to keep pace with higher employment rates. U.S. union membership has been falling steadily for decades, hurt by declines in manufacturing, automation and state laws that discourage unionization.