Thousands of union members will gather Monday at Oaks Park in Southeast Portland for the Northwest Oregon Labor Council’s annual Labor Day picnic, an annual event that showcases the strength of the state’s labor movement — even as union membership has been in steady decline nationally.
Nearly 300,000 Oregon workers belong to a union, according to federal data, about 1 in 6 workers statewide. Union membership rates have fluctuated since the 1980s but have gradually increased over the past two decades.
By comparison, the share of workers nationally who belong to a union has fallen by almost half since 1986. Fewer than 1 in 10 American workers were union members last year. That’s according to data compiled by unionstats.com, a research site maintained by three university professors…