The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a press release Friday indicating union membership declines during 2009.
In 2009 union membership dropped from 12.4% to 12.3%, down by 771,000 to 15.3 million.
Private sector: Down from 7.6% to 7.2%.
Public sector: Up from 36.8 to 37.4.
The upshot: for the first time ever, more public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private sector employees (7.4 million), although there are 5 times more wage and salary workers in the private sector.
