The annual survey report from the federal government shows that the union membership rate in 2023 dropped to the lowest ever recorded.

The share of workers who are members of a labor union is down to 10%, which is half the rate it was in 1983, the first year of the survey. At the time, there were 17.7 million union workers. That’s down to 14.4 million today.

Since 1983 the population of the United States and the number of people in the workforce have both increased. This means the rate of union membership has plummeted.

For private sector workers, the rate of union membership has slowly and steadily declined from almost one-fourth of workers in the 1970s to 6% in 2023. While the number of private union members increased last year, so did the number of overall employees.

The big change in recent years has been in public sector union membership.

From 1979 to 2011, the share of government workers who were members of a union held steady at around 37%. In 2011 a series of states began passing right-to-work laws, giving workers the right to opt out of union membership without losing their jobs. This started a downward trend in union membership. Then in 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that all public sector workers nationwide had right-to-work status.

Since 2011 the share of government workers deciding to remain as union members has declined from 37% to 32.5%. That equates to 900,000 fewer members. The number of public sector union members (7.0 million) is now well below the number of private sector union members (7.4 million).

Union losses since the Janus decision are likely understated. A 2023 report from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy analyzed the different ways to measure changes in union membership. It found that public records requests and union financial reports showed even heavier losses for government unions than surveys. State, school and local unions have seen around 20% of their members - one out of every five - decline to join.

Union membership in Michigan has dropped sharply. It stands at 12.8% of employed individuals, down from more than 30% in 1983. From 2022 to 2023, unions lost 25,000 members. This dropped Michigan from the 11th-most unionized in 2022 to the 12th-most unionized in 2023. Michigan was a top 10 state for union membership every year it was measured up until 2020.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is marketing the electric school bus as a source of energy during the grid shortfalls that will accompany the transition to wind and solar energy.

Last year, Michigan lawmakers enacted a 100% clean energy package that was pushed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The package requires that Michigan’s regulated utilities run on 100% renewable energy, such as solar and wind, by 2040.

Energy regulators warn that shortfalls will accompany the government-driven transition from reliables, such as coal and nuclear and natural gas, to renewables.

Lawmakers pressed forward anyway. That there will be shortfalls is as an accepted truth.

A story on the EPA website, titled “What If Electric School Buses Could be Used to Supply Power When Off Duty?”, sells the electric school bus as a solution to a man-made energy crisis.

“Renewable energy is intermittent—the wind blows and the sun shines, but not always when consumers need electricity,” the EPA admits.

The EPA continues: “As more renewables are added to the grid, energy storage technologies like V2G (vehicle-to-grid) batteries can store surplus energy, and then send it back to the grid when it is needed most—they can help balance load.”

Jason Hayes, the Mackinac Center’s director of energy and environmental policy, noted that in the future, the vehicle and the grid will be powered by the same wind and solar. One cannot feed the other, as they rely on the same source. A source the EPA admits is intermittent.

“What happens when wind and solar fails and they need the buses for grid support?” Hayes asked. “How do they recharge them before heading out to pick up the kiddos? Wind and solar have already failed, so what is going recharge the buses to get them ready for work?”

Hayes added: “It’s not hard to imagine a situation where the bus batteries are needed to keep a township or city running through the night, but wind and solar are incapable of recharging the batteries in time for the kids to get to school.” 

The EPA does not say that electric buses have this capability; it asks us “what if” they did, and assures us that experts are “exploring advancements.” It notes no achievements.

“Upfront costs are high,” the EPA warns, adding that new buses can cost two or three times more than a diesel bus. “However, compensation for supplying power back to the grid could help defray the upfront costs of going electric while making the grid more reliable and resilient—a power-full win for school districts, electric utilities, and the planet.”