Gov. Scott Walker signed a right-to-work law last march at Badger Meter in Brown Deer. The law blocks unions and private employers from reaching contracts that required workers to pay labor fees. Credit: Journal Sentinel files

SHARE

By of the

Madison— Union membership in Wisconsin collapsed in 2015, falling well below the national average for the first time and thinning the ranks of the labor movement by tens of thousands of workers in one of its former bastions.

The number of dues-paying workers within the state’s labor groups has fallen steadily since GOP Gov. Scott Walker signed his signature legislation, 2011’s Act 10, which repealed most collective bargaining for most public workers. But new federal statistics show that trend intensified in 2015 after Walker and GOP lawmakers followed up on Act 10 by approving so-called right-to-work legislation last spring.

That measure blocked unions and private employers from reaching contracts that required workers to pay labor fees.

In 2015, 8.3% of Wisconsin workers, or 223,000 in all, were members of unions. That was down sharply from the 306,000 people, or 11.7% of the state’s workforce, who belonged to unions in 2014.

“They’re pretty remarkable,” Will Jones, a labor historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said of the numbers.

But Jones said he wasn’t convinced that the numbers mainly reflected the effects of the right-to-work law. That’s because that law won’t affect private-sector unions here until the end of contracts in place at the signing of the law in March.

Instead, Jones said, the numbers likely reflect the effects of several factors, including potential job cuts at unionized plants and businesses and the last public-sector unions having long-running contracts end and coming under the effects of Act 10.

Teasing out the potential factors is difficult, since the Wisconsin union membership numbers do not distinguish between private and public-sector workers.

“I would think it’s the long-term effects of Act 10 more than right-to-work,” Jones said of Thursday’s figures.

Wisconsin’s union membership rate is now also well below the national average, a stark reversal from 2014, a year in which the state’s labor groups still fared better than those of the nation.

In 2015, union membership nationwide stood at 11.1%, steady from the previous year, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The effect is even more noticeable when considering the numbers from 2010, when union workers made up 14.2% of the workers in Wisconsin but 11.9% of those in the nation.

The long-term shift in the state has sweeping implications for the bottom lines of ordinary households, companies and governments as well as the upcoming 2016 elections.

Labor unions had been in decline long before Walker and GOP lawmakers took control of state government in 2011. But the trend has intensified in the state since, leaving unions with fewer members, tinier staffs and substantially smaller budgets to spend on advertising to sway voters and lobbyists to woo lawmakers.

Supporters of unions say that means they’re less effective at fighting for workers and their families at the bargaining table and in the broader public debate.

But opponents say the shift means less distortion of the marketplace. They say labor groups drive up the costs of public services for taxpayers and private goods for consumers, making the state and nation less competitive in an increasingly unforgiving global marketplace.

Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc) said workers in Wisconsin now have more options about how they’ll interact with their employer and spend their salaries.

“It’s good in the sense that workers in Wisconsin have more choices whether they’d like someone to represent them or they’d like to represent themselves,” Kleefisch said.

Union leader Phil Neuenfeldt said that freedom had done little for the workers or the state’s economy, saying Wisconsin has lagged the nation in job creation.

“Our economy is out of whack, inequality is rising, wages are falling and working people are suffering. Instead of helping families by strengthening collective bargaining, Governor Walker stacked the deck against workers,” Neuenfeldt said.