No Unity on Union Data: BLS Reveals Drop in Construction Union Membership
New U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showing nearly a full percentage point drop in union membership among construction workers in 2022 are being interpreted differently by both sides of an increasingly contentious construction unionization debate.
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), Washington, D.C., which represents merit shop contractor interests, frames the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) data as evidence that construction workers are increasingly rejecting union membership. In a news release the group says its analysis puts last year’s 11.7% union-membership rate at the lowest point since BLS began tracking it in 1973. Data released by BLS with its 2022 announcement shows it’s the lowest going back to at least 2012. The rate was 12.6% in 2021, and it has fallen steadily since 2017 when it stood at 14% (Figure).
ABC is using evidence of the decline to reenforce its claim that workers are rejecting unions and to harden its stance against Biden administration policies that it says favor union contractors in planned infrastructure construction projects. The press release quoted Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor, and state affairs, as saying the decline, coming despite robust job growth, shows “construction workers are not enthusiastic about joining a union when given a choice to do so.” The administration, he said, should reverse course on plans to “advance controversial policies specific to the construction industry that require its workers to join a union and/or pay union dues… as a condition of employment on a taxpayer-funded federal construction project.”
Union interests, however, take issue with ABC’s commentary. National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) counter in a joint statement that the BLS numbers are inflated because they count workers employed in single-family construction, a sector “low in union membership and (which) unfortunately does not accurately reflect the realities on the ground – that there is significant union participation among the commercial and industrial sectors of the construction industry.”
A spokesman for North America’s Building Trades Unions echoed the NECA/IBEW take, saying in an Engineering News-Record story that ABC’s analysis is misleading. “The BLS numbers are really within the margin of error of the survey,” said Tom Kriger, the association’s director of education and research. Leaving out single-family construction workers and supervisory and other non-craft workers, he said, "we think we're [at] about 38% or 39% density."
NECA/IBEW elaborated on the strong state of unionization, citing figures showing growth in representation in construction’s electrical sector, public support for unions, and federal infrastructure-improvement legislation acknowledging the broad benefits of unionized labor. Their statement cited more than a decade of growth in IBEW construction membership, growing ranks at NECA and statistics showing unions’ growing appeal.
“According to a report released last October by the National Labor Relations Board, union election petitions increased by 53% in fiscal year 2022 from the previous year,” the statement read. “Further, a 2022 Gallup poll shows 71% of Americans support labor unions — the highest since 1965. Study data also reveals that 70 percent of hourly workers say they would join a union if given the opportunity, a 50-year high.”
Statements from leaders of both organizations emphasized the benefits that accrue to contractors, employees and customers through unionization of electrical workers, notably training, competitive wages and benefits, reliability, safety, and high-quality workmanship.
ABC, however, contends the benefits are overstated and that the data clearly show unions are falling out of favor. With 88% of the construction sector non-unionized and numbers appearing to fall – construction unions lost 5,000 members over the last year despite the addition of 514,000 workers in 2022 – the group says there’s a disconnect when Washington is moving to smooth the path for unionized labor in federal construction projects.
“For example, President Biden’s Executive Order 14063, which requires federal agencies to mandate anti-competitive and wasteful project labor agreements on federal construction projects of $35 million or more — and other policies promoting PLAs on federally assisted state and local government infrastructure projects — are expected to result in more infrastructure jobs for unionized contractors and more jobs for union members at the expense of taxpayers and the 88.3% of the U.S. construction workforce that freely chooses not to join a union,” said Brubeck. “In contrast to the past two years, President Biden would be better off creating policies that invite all of America's construction workforce to compete for infrastructure work on a level playing field, regardless of labor affiliation.”
NECA and IBEW, however, say union-friendly legislation like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act will pay dividends. Good-paying union jobs and economic growth go hand-in-hand, the groups say, and legislation that recognizes the comparative value of unionized labor is well-conceived.
Tom Zind is a freelance writer based in Lees Summit, Mo. He can be reached at [email protected].
