New data shows 3% drop in union membership in the past year

Washington D.C. - Americans for Tax Reform today hailed new statistics showing that union membership in America suffered a steep 3% drop in just one year (2004).

The non-partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that worker union membership decreased from 12.9% of all workers in 2003 to 12.5% in 2004, a decline of 3%. This is the lowest percentage of union workers on record, dating back to before World War II.

"Most workers know that they don't need a union to own their own home, own their own health care, own their own retirement, or own their own small business," said ATR President Grover Norquist. "Unions no longer represent the best interests of their workers. They represent the best interest of union elites, who are too often aligned with the radical left wing of the Democrat party."

Unions continue to find their strength only in the government sector. While the private sector union membership rate is at a record-low 7.9%, a staggering 36.4% of all government bureaucrats are dues-paying union members.

"Increasingly, unions are little more than agitators for big government. When the majority of union members come from the beehive cubicles of government bureaucracy, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that higher taxes, more government and more dues-paying bureaucrats are good for increasingly-desperate union bosses," concluded Norquist.