Seyfarth Synopsis: Unions represent only
6.5% of all private sector employees. However, rather than
focusing on the past and why its fortunes have declined, a more
interesting question may be what organized labor is actively doing
to reverse this trend.
Organized labor is facing tough times. In their heyday during
the mid-1950's, labor unions represented over 35% of
America's private sector workforce. Today, over sixty years
later, unions represent only 6.5% of all private sector employees.
And even where unions do represent workers, dues revenue —
the lifeblood for a labor union — is likely to decline even
further when employees opt out of union membership in the growing
number of states that have enacted Right to Work laws, including
traditionally-unionized, "rustbelt" manufacturing states
such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana. (With a pending US Supreme
Court decision and some newer state laws, labor's current far
greater density and influence in the public
