Union participation in the Pelican State climbed slightly last year, but the small gain still leaves Louisiana with the fifth lowest percentage of union workers in the country.
According to a report from The Times-Picayune, union membership climbed to 4.5 percent of the state’s workforce in 2011, up from the record low of 4.3 percent in 2010.
The data, compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, ranks only four other states with lower union percentages than Louisiana: North Carolina, 2.9 percent; South Carolina, 3.4 percent; Georgia, 3.9 percent; and Arkansas, 4.2 percent:
Louisiana fell far below the natural average in this year’s count. Nationwide, union members made up 11.8 percent of the workforce, a negligible decrease from 2010, when 11.9 percent of that population were counted as belonging to a union.
Unions.org, a website that serves the union workforce and manages union databases online, reports that more than 45 unions represent roughly 107,000 workers in Louisiana.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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