Fewer workers are using the power of unions to protect their rights, new figures showed today. While employment rates boomed over the last 10 years guaranteeing jobs for almost 1.9 million people, the Central Statistics Office revealed only one third of workers were members of trade unions in 2004.
Young people aged 34 or under and the single are less likely to join a union, while married people are among the quickest to sign up.
Only 521,400 of all employees were in a union, this compares with 432,900 people a decade ago, as measured by the 1994 Labour Force Survey. The labour force grew by more than half a million in that period.
The highest concentrations of union members in 1994 were in Dublin, with 48.2 per cent, and the South-West, with 48 per cent.
But in 2004 this profile had changed leaving Dublin with one of the lowest regional union densities at 33.1 per cent . Only the West and the Mid-East had lower densities of 31.3 per cent, the CSO reported.
Almost half of union members are represented by SIPTU with 211,336 members on their books. The CSO Quarterly National Household Survey on union membership showed in both 1994 and 2004 the rates of union membership varied by age.
Membership rates tended to increase with age up until 60 and decline for those 60 and over. All age categories showed a decline this time around. Full time workers were also more likely to be union members.
In a separate survey, the CSO reported that average weekly earnings in the public sector, excluding health, rose by 6.2 per cent in the year to March 2005. Overall employment in the public sector was 346,200 in March 2005, an increase of 7,300 compared to March 2004.