UAW Membership Drops 14 Percent

The ranks of the United Auto Workers (UAW) declined last year by more than 73,538, or nearly 14 percent, as the domestic auto industry shed thousands of jobs and the union made little headway in organizing. According to its annual financial report filed late Thursday with federal regulators, the UAW counted 464,910 members at the end of 2007 -- less than a third of its 1.5 million peak in the 1970s, and the smallest since the UAW was still organizing Detroit automakers before World War II.

From Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON — The ranks of the United Auto Workers (UAW) declined last year by more than 73,538, or nearly 14 percent, as the domestic auto industry shed thousands of jobs and the union made little headway in organizing.

According to its annual financial report filed late Thursday with federal regulators, the UAW counted 464,910 members at the end of 2007 — less than a third of its 1.5 million peak in the 1970s, and the smallest since the UAW was still organizing Detroit automakers before World War II.

Despite the membership decline, the union’s revenues rose 8 percent to $327.6 million in 2007.

Much of the union’s retreat comes from the grinding economics of the U.S. auto industry and other manufacturing. The United States employs fewer people in manufacturing today than in 1950, at 13.7 million, as jobs have moved overseas for cheaper labor or been eliminated by more efficient factories.

Jobs at U.S. auto and auto parts makers fell to 948,700 in February, a loss of 75,500 over the previous year, thanks to continuing buyouts at Detroit automakers and job cuts at bankrupt parts suppliers. It’s the lowest level of employment by the industry since federal officials started tracking it in 1990.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has made organizing new union locals a key strategy for fighting the decline and has overseen the union’s stretch into new industries such as casinos and dealership employees. The union added 2,000 workers to its rolls at auto parts maker Dana Corp. following its bankruptcy and touted new contracts at heavy-truck makers.

Yet the union has only successfully organized one foreign-owned auto plant — the Volkswagen factory in Pennsylvania that closed in 1988. Outside of factories where it was invited in by Detroit automakers under joint ventures, the UAW has not been able to lure enough Toyota, Honda or Nissan workers at a plant into its fold.

And the Bush administration has fought many of the UAW’s efforts in Congress and through labor rules, with President George W. Bush vowing to veto a bill pushed by the UAW and other unions designed to ease organizing campaigns. Gettelfinger and the union maintain that more workers would join unions if the field was level.

"It seems that every time we win elections the National Labor Relations Board decides to change the rules," Gettelfinger told the UAW’s political convention in Washington earlier this year.

While union membership throughout the U.S. economy has declined in recent years, it held steady in 2007 at 12.1 percent of all workers; excluding government, only 7.5 percent of private-sector employees belong to a union. The gap in wages between union and non-union workers widened slightly last year according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with union members earning 30 percent higher median weekly wages.

The union paid Gettelfinger $163,075 in 2007, a 3 percent increase from 2006.