This morning I’m looking at a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about union membership in 2007.
Looks like Arizona unions and employee associations added about 33,000 members last year. Membership is up 16.75 percent.
There were 230,000 union members working in Arizona last year, which makes up around 8.8 percent of all the working people.
Another 25,000 people were represented by a union but weren’t members.
In total, about 1 in 10 Arizona workers is represented by a union — a little lower than the nationwide stat of 12 percent.
If that number strikes you as high, just consider how many public-sector employees are part of a union: teachers, police, firefighters, prison guards, Pima County employees, postal workers and bus drivers.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research says this is the first time since the government started collecting this data in 1983 that there has been an uptick in nationwide unionization.
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