BLS: Labor Union Membership Lowest in 76 Years

CNBC reports that about half the past year’s union losses were in industrial Midwestern states like Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, where ​“right-to-work” laws and other measures have made union membership more costly and more difficult for workers. Traditionally weak labor states like Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, on the other hand, saw growth in unions because of bustling local economies.  Robert Bruno, professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois, said a growing number of laws that make organizing workers more difficult were part of the reason for ​“an incremental erosion” of the labor movement. ​“It goes back a couple of decades, that there has been a growing number of anti-labor policies,” Bruno said. ​“We have the weakest labor law and enforcement of labor law in the entire Western industrialized world,” he said.