Union Membership in US

The union membership rate, the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions, was 11.1 percent in 2015, unchanged from 2014, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Workers in protective service occupations and in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rates at 36.3 percent and 35.5 percent, respectively.

Private sector union membership rate, 24.2% in 1973, 6.6%: in 2014. Public sector rose sharply in the 1970s and has been relatively steady since 1980 at around 35 percent, more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers.

Overall union membership has fallen by about a half since 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who died in our nation's service. The preferred name for the holiday gradually changed from "Decoration Day" to "Memorial Day", which was first used in 1882.
  
Decoration Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 to honor Union and Confederate soldiers by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization for Northern Civil War veterans), in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle.

The holiday changed after World War 1 from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a federal national holiday by an act of Congress, and its observance was set on the last Monday in May.