Union membership jumps

EVEN AS jobs were lost last year, union membership rose 12.4 percent, the largest gain since the government began compiling such data in 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.

Public sector unions, such as Council 2, accounted for most of the increase. Their membership rose to 36.8 percent.

The figures show the decline in union membership might have bottomed out, Gary Chaison, a labor specialist at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., told the Associated Press.