Union membership in the state hovered between 215,000 and 230,000 from 2015 through 2021. That makes it hard to tell if the membership gains in the new data reflect actual membership increases or a correction after an under-estimate last year, said Laura Dresser, associate director of the COWS economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“You need to see multiple years of data to really know what’s going on or to be able to say, ‘Absolutely, unions are growing in this state,’” she said.