L.A. school strike symbolic of California union growth

”Survey says” looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographic locations while noting these grades are best seen as a mix of artful interpretation and data.

Buzz: The Los Angeles Unified School District strike comes as California government workers fuel nationwide growth in union members.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual study of union membership and analysis of that data by UnionStats.

Topline

California’s job market is different than much of the nation, and union membership is a prime example.

California added 149,000 union members last year – 54% of organized labor’s overall 273,000 U.S. gain.

Last year, California governments rushed to refill jobs that were pruned during the pandemic era’s lockdowns. That hiring spree helped organized labor as 54% of California government workers are union members.

Related: Riverside, San Bernardino counties are US job-creation leader

Consider that in 2022, state and local governments added 111,000 California union jobs. So 75% of union growth statewide in 2022 was government workers like those on LA’s school picket lines.

Or look at 2022 union growth this bigger-picture way: 40% of the nation’s new union members were California government workers.

Details

California is easily the nation’s No. 1 union hotspot with 2.62 million members – 18.3% of the U.S. total. Next comes New York at 1.68 million, Illinois at 735,000, Pennsylvania at 715,000, and Ohio at 641,000.

And its leadership in new union workers for 2022 growth was followed by Texas, up 64,000, then Michigan at 49,000, Ohio at 45,000, and Alabama at 34,000.

But 18 states lost union members last year. New York had the biggest drop (50,000), then Oregon, off 37,000, Florida, off 34,000, Minnesota, off 34,000, and Indiana, off 33,000.

Taking into account California’s huge job market, union additions statewide in 2022 equaled 6% growth, No. 23 among the states, and triple the 2% growth nationally.

Bottom line

Organized labor’s clout – as measured by the share of the overall workforce – is expanding in California but down nationwide.

Last year, 16.1% of California workers were organized labor members vs. 15.9% in 2021. The nation’s 10.1% union share of workers was down from 10.3% in 2021.

Note that only three states have larger segments of their workers in unions: Hawaii at 21.9%, then New York at 20.7%, and Washington state at 18%.

And where do unions have the least power? Only 1.7% of all South Carolina workers are unionized, then North Carolina at 2.8%, South Dakota at 3.1%, Virginia at 3.7%, and Utah at 3.9%.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com