As can be seen from the table, the proportions differ across countries. For instance, in Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Sweden, unions lost most members because of disappearing jobs in industry. The opposite is true for most other countries. In Australia and Canada, unions declined in industry despite job growth. In the United States, union decline is hardly the result of fewer jobs in industry, but rather the result of the de-unionization of industry. Restructuring within manufacturing (from heavy to light industry, for instance) and the relocation of factories to Southern states with ‘right-to-work’ legislation, which prohibits employers from collecting union dues for workers under collective agreements, appear to have played a bigger role than the decline of manufacturing jobs.

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