This week in the war on workers: Union membership keeps dropping in 2016

There’s bad news and … well, there’s bad news. Union density continued its long decline in 2016:

In 2016, the share of workers who were members of a union decreased 0.4 percentage point to 10.7 percent, continuing a downward trend that has occurred since at least the early 1980s, when directly comparable data became available[.]

It’s not just the union membership rate, it’s also the raw numbers:

In addition to a 0.4 percentage-point drop in membership rate, there were also 240,000 less union workers in 2016 than in 2015[.]

And that’s before Donald Trump gets his hands on things. Although plenty of other Republicans and their corporate bosses have been at work on this for years.

● New Congress on track to block long-sought workplace and public health protections.

● Betsy DeVos gets an “F” from Michigan teachers:

“Money is spent on professional development and bringing in consultants,” said high school teacher Shalon Miller. “Everything but for the students.”

As funds are diverted to charters, she says, Detroit’s 50,000 public school students are forced to accept less and less. “We don’t have arts and gym and music and drama—the host of things that make high school bearable,” Miller said. “That’s not choice. That’s stealing.”

● Belabored: Meet the new boss.

● What Erik Loomis said. This is really frustrating to watch, because it doesn’t have to be this way.

● More on Trump's labor outreach.

● Another favorable decision for graduate students who want to unionize. But will it be the last one for a while?

● Workers Independent News: