According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provisional estimates, in July 2003 the seasonally adjusted civilian labor force in Illinois numbered 6,431,500, with approximately 415,200 workers unemployed, yielding an unemployment rate of 6.5%, compared to the national average of 6.2% for the same period. Since the beginning of the BLS data series in 1978, the highest unemployment rate recorded was 12.9% in December 1982. The historical low was 4.1% in April 2000. In 2001, an estimated 5.4% of the labor force was employed in construction; 16.5% in manufacturing; 7.1% in transportation, communications, and public utilities; 18.4% in trade; 6.5% in finance, insurance, and real estate; 27.2% in services; 12.0% in government; and 1.6% in agriculture.
The first labor organizations sprang up among German tailors, teamsters, and carpenters in Chicago in the 1850s, and among British and German coal miners after the Civil War. The period of industrialization after the Civil War saw many strikes, especially in coal mining and construction, many of them spontaneous rather than union-related. The Knights of Labor organized extensively in Chicago, Peoria, and Springfield in the 1870s and 1880s, reaching a membership of 52,000 by 1886. However, in the aftermath of the Haymarket Riot—at which a dynamite blast at a labor rally killed seven policemen and four civilians—the Knights faded rapidly. More durable was the Chicago Federation of Labor, formed in 1877 and eventually absorbed by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Strongest in the highly skilled construction, transportation, mining, and printing industries, the federation stood aside from the 1894 Pullman strike, led by industrial union organizer Eugene V. Debs, a bitter struggle broken by federal troops over the protest of Governor Altgeld.
Labor unions are powerful in Chicago but relatively weak downstate. The major unions are the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Steelworkers of America, the International Association of Machinists, the United Automobile Workers, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. The Illinois Education Association, though not strictly a labor union, has become one of the state's most militant employee organizations, often calling strikes and constituting the most active lobby in the state. In 1983, a new law granted all public employees except police and firemen the right to strike.
The US Department of Labor reported that in 2002, 1,066,000 of Illinois's 5,450,000 employed wage and salary workers were members of unions. This represented 19.6% of those so employed, up from 18.1% in 2001 but down slightly from 20% in 1998. The national average is 13.2%. Illinois ranked 3rd in the nation in the largest number of union members. In all, 1,122,000 workers (20.6%) were represented by unions. In addition to union members, this category includes workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union contract.