UAW Membership Increased in 2001

Membership in the United Auto Workers increased about 4.3% last year, giving one of the largest U.S. labor unions a rank-and-file gain for the first time in more than two decades.

The UAW said its membership stood at 701,818 at the end of 2001, an increase of 29,865 from the previous year.

Until last year the UAW’s membership, which declined by about 12% in 2000, had decreased steadily since 1979, when it boasted 1.5 million members.

The union’s downsizing largely has been due to Detroit’s Big Three auto makers, which slowly have cut their blue-collar work forces because of pressures from foreign competitors.