Meet Rosie the Nurse, the New Face of Labor

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5161/meet_rosie_the_nurse_the_new_face_of_labor/

Wednesday November 11 3:36 pm

By David Moberg

A quarter century ago the typical American union member was a white man who worked in manufacturing and did not have any college education.

Today that description would be off the mark. Now the typical union member can plausibly be described as a woman—white, but less so than before—with a college degree working for a public employer.


Members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) protest measures proposed by Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut back on staff in hospitals. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)


In their new report, “The Changing Face of Labor, 1983-2008," John Schmitt and Kris Warner of the Center for Economic and Policy Research crunch the numbers and find well-recognized trends changing the face of labor: declining unionization rates, de-industrialization, increased immigration, higher average education, growing entry of women into the wage workforce, and greater relative ease of organizing in the public sector.

Women now make up 45 percent—and probably half by 2010—of all union members today, up from 35 percent in 1983. Three-eighths of union workers have a four-year college degree (half of union women), up from one-fifth 25 years ago.

Only one in ten union workers is in manufacturing (down from nearly 30 percent), but nearly half are in the public sector. Compared to 1983, union members are much more likely to be Latino, Asian, or immigrants, much less likely to be white, and just about as likely to be black. And now workers with at least some college education are more likely to be unionized than those with high school or less—a reversal from 1983.

None of this is shocking, exactly, but there are some surprising stories behind these trends. For example, women are growing as a share of the labor movement faster than they’re growing as a share of the overall workforce. But that’s not because unions are doing so well organizing women: The unionization rate for women fell (from 18 to 12.9 percent), but it fell even faster for men (from 27.7 to 14.5 percent).

FULL story at link.