The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that organized labor lost 10% of its members in the private sector last year, the largest decline in more than 25 years. The drop is on par with the fall in total employment but threatens to significantly constrain unions’ ability to influence elections and legislation.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported private-sector unions lost 834,000 members, bringing membership down to 7.2% of the private-sector work force, from 7.6% the year before. The broader drop in U.S. employment and a small gain by public-sector unions helped keep the total share of union membership flat at 12.3% in 2009. In the early 1980s, unions represented 20% of workers.

Labor experts said the losses would have a long-term impact on unions and their finances, because unions wouldn’t automatically regain members once the job market rebounded. In many cases, new jobs will be created at nonunion employers or plants.

The manufacturing sector and construction industries—both of which tend to be heavily unionized—were hit particularly hard in the recession, which damped demand for industrial goods. Private sector construction lost 237,000 union members, while manufacturing lost 253,000 union members, representing more than half of the loss of private-sector union jobs.

The report caps a week of bad news for organized labor, as Democrats lost a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, dashing union hopes for passing legislation to ease union-organizing rules, and putting the union-backed health-care bill into question.

Some labor experts said labor’s focus on politics came at the expense of organizing. “It’s a year when the labor movement focused its energies on labor-law reform and health care,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University labor expert.

With those issues on shaky ground, unions are now expected to focus their political energy on job creation, in hopes they will be union jobs.

Source: Wall Street Journal