Department of Labor (DOL)

We’ve reported here on the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that showed that the numbers of unionized Americans continued its historic and sharp decline throughout 2012. But now that the dust has settled a little, can you guess which union remains the largest in terms of membership in the U.S.? The Teamsters? How about the UAW? Or perhaps the SEIU?

If you guessed any of those, you’d be wrong. The union with the largest membership in 2012 according to recently filed LM-2 reports remains the National Education Association which counts 3.1 million educators as members. But even the NEA shrunk in 2012, losing more than 99,000 members.

Other big losers in terms of membership numbers (from 2011 to 2012) include:

1. Teamsters – down 51,924 to 1.3 million (a 4 percent decrease)
2. Service Employees International Union – down 44,960 to 1.9 million
3. Laborers – 8,422 fewer members
4. United Food and Commercial Workers – 13,102-member drop
5. Machinists – lost 4,033 members

There were some increases though. The IBEW added 4,978 additional members in 2012. The UAW increased their membership in 2012 by 1,794 members to 382,513. The United Steelworkers also increased their membership in 2012 growing by 7,100 to 614,054 members.

Indiana union membership is at its lowest level since the 1980's. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union members made up 9.1 percent of Indiana's workforce in 2012, down from 22 percent in 1983. The full story from the Indiana Business Journal can be found by clicking on the link below.

Indiana Business Journal – “Indiana Union Membership at Lowest Level in 24 Years”

As measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of workers who are union members declined in 2012 for the fifth year in a row. The BLS annual report found that 11.3 percent of wage and salary workers were members of a union in 2012, down from 11.8 percent in 2011. The total number of workers belonging to a union also declined, down to 14.4 million from 14.8 million. As reported by the Washington Post, current union membership is the lowest since the 1930s.

Notably, states that have seen significant labor law fights in the last year were among those who saw the greatest decline in union membership. Indiana, which enacted Right to Work legislation in 2012, saw its union numbers decline from 11.3 percent to 9.1 percent. Similarly, Michigan, which also passed Right to Work as well as limiting public sector collective bargaining last year, saw its union membership decline from 17.5 percent to 16.6 percent. Wisconsin’s union membership rate fell to 11.2 percent from 13.3 percent, a decline that may have been affected by Wisconsin’s limits on public bargaining passed in 2011.

The full BLS report is available on the Department of Labor’s website here.

While the debate about the fiscal cliff has been about what services to eliminate and how much to raise taxes, ignored almost entirely is the fact that the government grossly overpays for the services it buys.

According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for a federal government employee (including the Post Office) was $70,100 per year. For all private sector workers, that number was $43,980. That is, federal government employees are paid 59.4 percent more in salary than their private sector counterparts.

This differential does not include the higher costs of benefits to federal employees that one Congressional Budget Office study recently pegged as being 44.7 percent greater. That same CBO study which attempted to control for factors including educational attainment and regional variations concluded that the wage differential (excluding benefits) between federal employees and private sector workers was 14.7 percent.

Given that the federal government currently spends approximately $200 billion on its civilian employees, eliminating this wage gap would result in significant cost savings to the American taxpayer. Even without adjusting benefit costs (which itself could provide significant cost savings), simply eliminating the wage disparity could provide $300 billion in deficit reduction over the next ten years – all without eliminating a single federal program. 

Later this month, we will look at cost savings from eliminating so-called prevailing wage programs that amount to transfer payments to unionized construction workers.

In an article posted on its website on Aug. 16, 2012, the Washington Examiner provides some interesting data, garnered from the data unions are required to submit to the U.S. Department of Labor, regarding the compensation received by the leaders of some of America's largest unions. 

First, the average yearly compensation for the top 25 earning union leaders was approximately $570,000.00, a pay raise of about 88 percent on average from the year 2000. That rate of growth not only more than doubled the growth rate of the average union worker (38 percent), it also was counter to the trend of CEO compensation, which actually declined over the same period of time.  Additionally, the yearly compensation for these union leaders in 2011 was approximately ten times that of the average worker, who earned $53,463 in the private sector and $59,229 in the public sector. The article can be read in its entirety here.

P.S.  Yes that is correct, according to this article public sector workers make 10.8 percent more than private sector workers.

While most employers treat any strike as “major,” the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) labels only work stoppages involving 1,000 or more employees as major. The BLS just released the major work stoppage data for 2011. The data, which includes both strikes and lockouts, revealed the five-year highs totals in number of major strikes and numbers of workers involved and a four-year high in the number of idle days involved. The number of major work stoppages increased 72.7 percent and idle days increased 338 percent from their 2010 levels. This data is further confirmation that organized labor is increasingly militant following the improvement in the economy from the depths and 2008-2009 recession and union friendly administration in Washington, D.C. 

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the United States Department of Labor (DOL) is investigating a series of payments totaling nearly $1 million dollars made by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission to an unnamed representative of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. While the funds, some of which according to the Times were delivered in suitcases packed with $100 bills, were supposed to be used to cover wages for union stagehands, the Commission did not impose controls over where the money ended up. This lack of control, combined with the Commission's apparent failure to make required contributions to employee retirement accounts (it is unclear if the required payments were made on wages paid in cash) has caused quite a stir in Los Angeles and may be the reason for the DOL's investigation.

Though it is unclear from the Times report what exactly the DOL is investigating, it is likely potential violations of Section 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act. Section 302 makes criminal the payment, lending, or delivery of “any money or other thing of value” to, among others, “any representative of his employees who are employed in an industry affecting commerce.” Suitcases full of $100 bills given to a union representative with an undisclosed or unspecified final destination would seem to be a thing of value. Even if ultimately determined not unlawful, the appearance of impropriety would create a black eye for the union and employer involved Employers should be mindful not to give in to union demands for improper payments.  

Curiously, a case involving the allegations of theft larger than any reported on the DOL website is omitted from the DOL's report. That case involved a UFCW Local in New York City and three of its union leaders who are alleged to have "extorted or stole over $2.4 million from the Union and employers whose employees belonged to the Union" over the period set forth in the indictment.

The United States Attorney's press release about the case can be found here.

A Federal government report reflects that in the first 10-plus months of 2011 government prosecutions have resulted in the conviction and sentencing of 82 individuals all working in the same industry. An additional 37 people in this industry have been convicted and await sentencing. The indictments of 50 more have been issued and these individuals await the adjudication of their cases.

The 119 who have been convicted of embezzling or otherwise stealing were caught taking more than $5.8 million which came from working men and women. The 82 who already have been sentenced to a total are to serve a total of nearly 40 years behind bars or in home confinement and must spend a total of nearly 200 years on probation. 

This industry is organized labor. Most of the crimes (both admitted and alleged) were against the working people organized labor purports to want to represent. The prosecutions were by the Obama Administration’s Justice and Labor Departments – thus, these were not part of some witch hunt by an anti-union administration. Rather, these “enforcement actions” were brought by one of the most labor friendly administrations in history. Nor was this an unusual level of activity in this area. Indeed, for much of the last decade the Justice Department has had to prosecute a similar magnitude of union officials and employees each year for various crimes – most typically embezzling or otherwise stealing union funds. 

The 2011 DOL listing of criminal enforcement actions is available here.