Hope you’re not too tired of election talk, because our semiannual report on NLRB election statistics is almost here. It analyzes union organizing activity for the first half of 2012, and compares it to last year’s first half. While looking it over, I noticed that some unions and employers have been enjoying a very good year so far. Here’s a brief list.

• Construction companies. In a year that’s seen slightly more NLRB elections overall than last year, the construction industry has experienced a significant dropoff in union activity, both in the number of elections (from 77 to 65) and in the number of union wins (from 68 to 46).

• Machinists. Of the 10 most active unions, five organized more workers in first-half 2012 than they did in first-half 2011. But the IAM was the only union that has more than doubled its 2011 total-- it organized 1,860 workers, compared with just 768 by mid-2011.

• Large employers. Have 100 employees or more? Then the odds of a union successfully organizing in your workplace are about 50-50—lower than they were last year, and much lower than the success rate for unions in smaller workplaces.

• Government employees. Of the 1,265 workers who could have been organized in AFSCME-petitioned elections, the union succeeded in organizing 1,062 of them, for an 84 percent success rate. Most of the other top-10 unions managed only about a 25- to 50-percent success rate.

• Change to Win. In a previous post, I mentioned that CTW has been winning fewer elections, but organizing more workers, than the AFL-CIO. In first-half 2012, however, CTW was winning on both fronts—winning 60 percent of its elections (just edging AFL-CIO’s 59 percent) while organizing 3,390 more workers.

• Midwestern unions. There’s something happening in the heartland. The number of union wins has practically doubled in the 12 Midwestern states since last year, from 64 to 127. Unions saw their win totals rise from 10 to 20 in Michigan, from 17 to 37 in Illinois, and—what’s in the water in Missouri? Last year, unions won all of five elections. This year so far, they’re 24 for 27.