Idaho’s union worker ranks got smaller last year

Union membership is down in Idaho.

About 6.1 percent of wage and salary workers in Idaho were part of a union in 2016, compared with 6.8 percent in 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a news release this week.

But the pared-down share still outpaced union-membership levels between 2011 and 2014.

The raw number of members also declined 8.7 percent from 2015.

Idaho’s union presence remains significantly smaller than the national average — which has been the case since at least the late 1980s. Idaho’s union membership peaked in 1993 and fell to its lowest in 2013.

Nationwide, union members were about 10.7 percent of wage and salary workers last year, down from 11.1 percent the year before.

But Idaho is far from the least union-heavy state in the country. It ranked 37th last year for union-membership percentage, according to BLS.

This story was originally published February 24, 2017 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Idaho’s union worker ranks got smaller last year."