The once powerful presence of labor unions in combating issues in the workplace has lost some of its allure, according to a recently released study by a Washington D.C.-based think tank. Membership in national labor unions has declined especially among Black workers, with less than one-third of employed African Americans belonging to labor unions. That’s a 50 percent drop in the last 20 years.

The report, released in May by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, found that more than 31 percent of all African-American workers were members of labor unions in 1983. Last year, however, only 15 percent of the more than 14.46 million Black workers were active members of labor unions.

The findings come only a few months after the highly publicized battle between Roger Toussaint, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Toussaint served jail time for orchestrating the illegal transit workers’ strike last December that crippled the city for three days. Of the nearly 38,000 local union members, more than 70 percent are Blacks and Latinos.

“The attacks against our union to reduce our strength – to the point where we are unable to stand up for our members – continue,” Toussiant said. “Union representatives are there every day to ensure that members get due process.”

National awareness of union issues has come to the forefront of some political discussions, in part because of Toussaint’s symbolic stance against the city. For example, a coalition of unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO recently defeated a plan by President George W. Bush to eliminate collective bargaining rights from nearly 700,000 civilian U.S. Defense Department workers.