By Arthur Maurice
NJBIA First Vice President
NJPRO Board of Trustees Member

Organized labor unions have become increasingly important in State House politics over the last year. At the Governor's invitation, national AFL-CIO President John Sweeney took a front row seat at James E. McGreevey's in inauguration ceremony, joining the state chief executive's closest friends and family. Weeks later, Governor McGreevey publicly proclaimed his goal to make New Jersey the "most pro-union state" in the nation.

Ironically, unions are flexing their political muscle at a time when union membership, particularly in the private sector, is dwindling. Just who are New Jersey's union members and how important a force is organized labor in New Jersey?

Only 13 percent of the state's private sector workforce is unionized today. Compare this to the 87 percent of private sector employees who are have no union affiliation. Clearly, union power isn't what it used to be. Let's look at the recent history of union membership here in New Jersey.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 709,000 union members in New Jersey. This figure has dropped steadily over the past 20 years, from a high of 821,000 union workers in 1983. This drop mirrors national trends showing union participation falling at similar rates all across the nation. Today, New Jersey ranks seventh among states in the number of union employees.

The impact of organized labor on the New Jersey's 3.6 million workforce is also diminished. During the 1990s, union membership declined in New Jersey even as the economy was adding hundreds of thousands of new jobs. In 2001, only one in five New Jersey workers (in government and business) carried a union card, a steep drop from two in five a quarter century ago.

Actually, the losses in union membership would be even greater were it not for the growth in unionization among government workers, including public school teachers. New Jersey public employees represented by unions such as the NJEA, AFT, AFSCME and CWA now comprise nearly one-half of New Jersey's 710,000 union workers, up from one-third 20 years ago.

For the New Jersey union movement, public employees are particularly fertile recruitment territory, despite the presence of existing civil service and teacher tenure job protection. Sixty percent of all public workers are union members. Compare this to the private sector where only thirteen percent of workers are unionized. Since 1983, union ranks in private industry have fallen by 143,000 members. During the same period, public employee union participation actually grew by 31,000 members.

Along with government employees, New Jersey's construction industry shows growth in union membership, up 15,000 since 1983. Presently, one-third of New Jersey's construction workforce is unionized, leaving 110,000 nonunion construction workers.

The demise of the union movement in New Jersey's private sector is due primarily to the decline of manufacturing jobs as the state's economy has "deindustrialized" and become more service-based. And the manufacturing jobs that remain are higher skill, with better pay, far exceeding union wages. For example, in New Jersey nonunion manufacturing wages are 64 percent higher than union manufacturing wages.

Prospects for reversing the decline of unionism in New Jersey are not good. With rising state and local taxes, pressure will build to constrain government employment and payrolls. Meanwhile, in the private sector last year, New Jersey unions lost over 50 percent of representational elections to garner new members.

is First Vice President of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, an affiliate of the New Jersey Policy Research Organization (NJPRO) Foundation and is also a member of the NJPRO Board of Trustees.