A new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Connecticut’s 2024 workforce had the fourth-highest labor union membership of any state in the country at 16.5%, or about 269,000 people.
That’s significantly higher than the national average of 9.9% and is up from the 15.9% of unionized workers in Connecticut in 2023.
Connecticut had the fourth-highest percentage of unionized labor force in the country, behind Hawaii (26.5%), New York (20.6%), and Alaska (17.7%). States with the lowest percentages of unionized workforce were North Carolina (2.4%), South Dakota (2.7%) and South Carolina (2.8%).
Multiple states with very high percentages of unionized workers also were states with the highest per-capita incomes in America, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, and Washington.
Sen. Jorge Cabrera, a Hamden Democrat, who serves as vice-chair of the legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee, said union membership was not all about wages.
“People are looking for more respect on the job, and a level playing field for better benefits,” Cabrera said. “That’s what unions provide. The players in the NBA and the NFL and Major League Baseball are all union members. They don’t have any financial concerns. For them, being union members is all about what the union can provide for better working conditions and quality of life.”
The federal report illuminates several aspects of union membership in America, including:
- Most union members in America are police officers, firefighters, teachers, librarians, and transportation or warehouse workers.
- Men are more likely than women to be union members, and Black workers are more likely to be union members than White, Asian or Hispanic workers.
- Workers ages 45-54 are most likely to belong to a union (12.6%). Only 4.3% of young workers ages 16 to 24 are unionized.
- The number of union workers in the public and private sectors is about the same – 7 million in the public sector and 7.2 million in the private sector – although about 32.2% of public sector jobs are unionized compared to just 5.9% in the much larger private sector.
- Union members earn about 15% more per week than non-union workers in similar jobs. That equates to about $199 more per week, or additional $10,348 per year.
Unionization efforts have been on the upswing in Connecticut in recent months.
In August, Hearst Connecticut Media – which owns eight newspapers in the state – announced that 92 of its 110 employees voted to join a union. Also in August, about two dozen workers at two Starbucks in Connecticut voted to unionize.
