Unions are losing their clout in California’s construction industry.
My trusty spreadsheet, filled with numbers from UnionStats.com that track federal labor movement data back to 1983, found 129,800 unionized construction workers across the state last year — the lowest since 2014.
Union membership in the building trades is down 21% in a year and off 29% from 2019, the year before the pandemic upended the economy.
Contrast that shrinkage to growing non-union staffing at construction sites.
California had a record 907,200 non-union construction workers in 2024 — that’s up 11% in a year and up 13% since 2019. Construction bosses have worked hard to keep as many projects as possible outside organized labor’s reach.
The shift in employment patterns means unions controlled 12.5% of all California construction workers last year, the smallest slice on record. That’s down from 17% in 2023 and 19% in 2019. It’s also off from the 21% average share since 1983 — when union membership equaled 39% of all construction jobs statewide.
And construction is also losing its share of California’s organized labor. Just 5.5% of the 2.2 million unionized workers statewide in 2024 were in the building trades, down from 6.6% in 2023, 7.3% in 2019, and a 6.4% average since 1983.
By the way, union membership in all California industries hit an 18-year low in 2024 at 14%.
Regionally speaking
Los Angeles and Orange counties had the largest number of unionized construction workers last year — 38,300 members — according to this data when sliced by major job markets across the state. That’s an 11% share of all L.A.-O.C. construction jobs.
Here’s union membership in other California metropolitan areas:
Inland Empire: 18,800 members, or a 12% share of all construction jobs.
San Diego: 15,600 members, 17% share.
Stockton: 12,000 members, 28% share.
San Francisco: 7,300 members, 8% share.
Fresno: 5,200 members, 32% share.
Modesto: 4,600 members, 16% share.
San Luis Obispo: 3,700 members, 52% share.
San Jose: 3,400 members, 8% share.
Sacramento: 2,900 members, 5% share.
Santa Rosa: 2,800 members, 29% share.
Vallejo: 2,700 members, 51% share.
Redding: 2,000 members, 26% share.
Hanford: 1,700 members, 57% share.
Chico: 1,600 members, 20% share.
Visalia: 1,500 members, 15% share.
Santa Maria: 1,400 members, 5% share.
Santa Cruz: 1,600 members, 22% share.
No union members were tallied in Bakersfield, Salinas and Ventura County.
Jonathan Lansner is business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com
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