WDET: Marick Masters on union membership numbers
Currently, about 10% of all U.S. workers are members of a union. The last year saw an increase in the number of union members but a greater increase in the number of workers who are not part of a union. Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University, says organized labor needs a significant jump in membership in order to turn the tide. "It needs to replace those members which it loses each year to retirement, attrition, plus the influx of new workers into the workforce," said Marick. "Michigan, when you say it's increased by 50,000, that pretty much means it stayed the same." The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that about 58,900 Michigan workers are union members, about 14% of the state's workforce.
