The Dept of Labor released their report on Union Membership last week. Not surprisingly, the AP had a cow and came way far from reporting what the report means and what the report shows.
The only national number the AP used was comparing Wisconsin’s union membership, 8 percent, to be below the national average of 10.7 percent. There’s not a word about the serious overall national decline in union membership. Let alone the performance during the last eight years of the Obama administration. Those are facts the AP, whose journalists are mostly if not entirely members of the News Media Guild, doesn’t like. So it didn’t report them.
The AP then blamed right to work legislation as the reason for that shortfall without offering any “proof” that right to work legislation caused any part of Wisconsin’s union membership decline in 2016. Overall, Wisconsin’s union membership dropped by only 4,000 in 2016 to 219,000.
The situation for organized labor goes way beyond Wisconsin. Florida dropped 90,000 members since 2015, representing 5.6 percent of workers compared to 6.8 percent the previous year.
And this is what the labor union membership looks like after eight years of the Obama administration.
What else happened last week? The XL Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipeline projects got the go-ahead from President Trump. All union jobs. And, Labor Union leaders met with President Trump in The White House to talk jobs. Reminds me of a question often raised in the 2016 presidential campaign. What have you got to lose?
Links: Union Membership (Annual) News Release | AP Ignores Falling Obama-Era U.S. Union Membership, Takes Aim at Wisconsin
