The UAW is proudly announcing its third straight year of membership growth. However this year’s growth was fairly anemic. The union ended 2012 with 382,513 members, just 1,797 more than 2011.
The UAW actually gained around 7,000 members in the recovering auto sector but lost nearly that many in other areas where they represent workers.
The UAW announcement came on the same day the new right-to-work law went into effect in Michigan. Since the law does not impact contracts which were already in place, right-to-work will not touch the big Michigan automakers until 2015 when current contracts expire.
Other large unions have not been as fortunate as the UAW. A leaked figure from an NEA presentation in February revealed their membership is down 70,000 in the past year.