Report: Union membership dwindles in WI, across U.S.

An encouraging trend indeed.

MADISON — If labor unions’ strength lies in numbers, a new report indicates unions’ most powerful days may be behind them.

Membership in organized labor unions dropped last year in Wisconsin by 16,000, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That left 13.3 percent of the employed population — 339,000 workers — represented by unions, down from 14.2 percent in 2010.

“I think at this point, we’ve gotten to the point where the unionization rates are so low that for many workers, they don’t have any exposure to unions and unions are not seen as a normal part of working lives,” said William Powell Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor in history whose specialty is the history of the labor movement.