Workers have slowly moved back to the Union movement with an additional 82,200 signing up in the past year as thousands of jobs were lost.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said 20% of workers were now union members, up from 19%.  There were now 1.8 million trade union members in Australia, but there were still 1.5 million workers who had left a Union and never returned.

There were an additional 73,100 employees who were members of a trade union through a secondary job.

Of the total 1.9 million employees who were members of a trade union, 63% had been a member for 4 years or more, compared with 10% who had been a member for less than a year.

Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Jeff Lawrence said the new data was very encouraging.

“The average union member now earns $145 a week more than the average worker who is not in a union”.