The number of workers in Colorado belonging to a union last year was 140,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Union members accounted for 6.6 percent of wage and salary workers in Colorado in 2010, compared with 7.0 percent in 2009. At its peak in 1990, union membership for the State was 10.5 percent.
Nationally, the number of workers belonging to a union declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million in 2010.
Union members accounted for 11.9 percent of employed wage and salary workers, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier. In 1983, the first year for which comparable national union data were available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent.
Colorado’s union membership rate has been below the U.S. average every year since state data were first available for comparison in 1989.
