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February 3, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
...Byram takes reins at labor agency
From Page 2
bers in need access information
about social programs and other
services.
“Vickie has done so much
for Labor’s Community Service
Agency, and I’ve learned so
much from her. Vickie built this
thing. She got the ship running
strong and in the right direction.
Now I hope to take it to the next
level,” Byram said.
Byram wants to serve on the
United Way Campaign cabinet.
“It’s so important that labor
and United Way continue to
build a strong partnership. Their
impact work on ending the cy-
cle of childhood poverty is im-
portant and has an inherent link
to labor’s living wage jobs. To-
gether, we can really make a dif-
ference.”
Byram will have the labor
seat on Workforce Systems Inc.
She will be the dislocated
worker labor liaison for em-
ployees facing layoff or plant
closures.
Byram also wants to make
some changes to LCSA’s Help-
ing Hands program. She says
more and more calls coming
into the office are from folks be-
ing evicted from their homes, or
facing astronomical rent in-
creases.
“What we can offer right now
isn’t really helpful to a family
living in a car,” she said.
Byram will be reaching out to
union locals in the coming
months to talk about possible
solutions.
Annual survey records further
union membership declines
Union membership fell to 10.7
percent of the U.S. workforce in
2016, down from 11.1 percent
the previous year, according to
the latest annual report from the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS). That amounted to a loss
of 240,000 union members
since the previous year. Total
U.S. union membership now
stands at 14.6 million.
The 10.7 percent figure is the
lowest ever recorded since com-
parable data began to be col-
lected in 1983. That year, union
members made up 20.1 percent
of the U.S. workforce.
In Oregon, 13.5 percent of
workers were union members
in 2016 (228,000 workers),
compared to 14.8 percent for
2015. In Washington, the sur-
vey found 17.4 percent of
workers (539,000) were union
members in 2016, up from 16.8
percent in 2015.With the in-
crease, Washington is now the
fifth most unionized state in the
nation. Oregon ranked 11th.
In neighboring Idaho, union
members were estimated at 6.1
percent of the workforce in
2016. In California they were
15.9 percent.
New York was the most
unionized state, at 23.6 percent,
140
while South Carolina was the
least, with 1.6 percent.
In each case, the figures are
slightly higher for “union-repre-
sented” workers than for union
“members.” That’s because
some union-represented work-
ers choose not to become full
union members. Nationwide, an
estimated 1.7 million workers
were union-represented but not
union members, and the total of
the U.S. workforce that was
union-represented was 12.0 per-
cent. In Oregon, union-repre-
sented workers were 15.8 per-
cent of the workforce, and in
Washington 18.7 percent.
Nationally, just 6.4 percent of
private-sector workers were
union members, while more
than five times that, 34.4 per-
cent, of public sector workers
were union members. That
amounted to 7.1 million union
members in the public sector,
and 7.4 million union members
in the private sector.
Union members continue to
out-earn nonunion workers, on
average: Median weekly earn-
ings were $1,004 for union
members, compared to $802 for
workers without a union.
The BLS union membership
report is considered fairly reli-
able at the national level, but
small year-to-year fluctuations at
the state level may have more to
do with how the numbers are ob-
tained. They come from the Cen-
sus Bureau’s Current Population
Survey, a monthly sample of
60,000 households nationwide.
The smaller the state’s popula-
tion, the greater the likelihood
that a statistical sample might not
have been representative.