158-1-711
THE past 30 years have been dismal ones for the labour movement. In the American private sector trade-union density (ie, the proportion of workers who belong to unions) has fallen from a third in 1979 to just 7% today. In Britain it has dropped from 44% to 15%. Nor is this just an Anglo-Saxon oddity: less than a fifth of workers in the OECD belong to unions.
There is one big exception to this story of decline, however: the public sector. In the Canadian public sector union density has increased from 12% in 1960 to more than 70% today. In America it has increased over the same period from 11% to 36% (see chart). There are now more American workers in unions in the public sector (7.6m) than in the private sector (7.1m), although the private sector employs five times as many people. Union density is now higher in the public sector than it was in the private sector in its glory days, in the 1950s.
Even countries that have seen a dilution of union density in the public sector have seen it stabilise at a much higher level than in the private sector. In Britain density has fallen dramatically from 82% in 1979, but has stabilised at about 56%. Reliable global statistics are hard to come by but evidence from many countries (including Germany and Japan) suggests that the gap between the public and private sectors is both substantial and growing.

A. 어휘
Public-sector unions 공공부문노조. dismal 음침한, 우울한, 무서운.
trade-union 勞組(노조). density 밀도. proportion 비율.
oddity 奇異(기이)함. Union density 노조 加入(가입)比率(비율).
exception 예외. dilution 稀釋(희석), 물게 하기. Reliable 신뢰성 있는, 믿을만한.
statistics 통계. come by 손에 넣다. substantial 실제적인, 실질적인.