Slate: GM's sorry little strike

... The Wall Street Journal has some fantastic charts online that highlight the dual shrinkage of GM's U.S. business and the UAW's membership. This decade has been kind to neither. "In the past 18 months, GM has persuaded 34,400 unionized workers to take early retirements or buyouts, with Ford and Chrysler cutting 27,000 and 6,400 union jobs, respectively," the Journal reported earlier this month. "Since the last labor agreement went into effect in 2003, UAW membership at GM, Ford and Chrysler has fallen from 317,000 to about 180,000." Today, about 73,000 GM UAW workers are out on strike. Given that today's economy hosts 146 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, GM's UAW contingent comprises 0.05 percent of the American work force. The story of the UAW is the story of the labor movement writ large. As BLS notes, last year, "12.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members, down from 12.5 percent a year earlier"—and down from 20.1 percent in 1983. Only 7.4 percent of private-sector workers are unionized...

http://www.slate.com/id/2174601/