Union Membership Rises in Washington

Union membership in Washington was up point-six percent in 2016 to 17.4 percent of wage and salary workers in the state. Washington ranks fifth in the nation in union membership. Nationally, unions lost point-four percent of their workers with 10.7 percent of wage and salary workers belonging to a union. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there were 539,000 union workers in Washington with another 38,000 workers represented by unions for their job. The highest union rate in the U.S. was in New York which had nearly a quarter of its wage and salary earners in unions.