Week 14 Sociology in Action Workshop: Union Rates, Sectors, and Who Gives the Orders

Part 1 — The Big Picture

This week you learned that a union membership rate is a share of wage and salary workers, not of all people, and that the overall rate can hide two very different sectors. In its Union Members release, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 10.0% of wage and salary workers were union members in 2025, against 20.1% in 1983. In this workshop you read a small, made-up survey of one metro area's workers in two years, compute each sector's rate and the overall rate, and discover for yourself how a rate can fall sharply while the number of members falls far less. Then you run the pattern through the three perspectives and the two models of who holds power, observe one rule or order in your own week through Weber's types of authority, and ask a chatbot the same questions so you can catch where it goes wrong.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: In one metro area's union counts for two years, how can the overall union rate fall by 8 percentage points while each sector tells a different story, and what makes the people around you accept one rule or order in your own week as authority rather than power?

Workshop data: an illustrative metro area's union membership by sector in two survey years and your own authority observation (illustrative)

Source: An illustrative dataset constructed for this workshop, not from a real place: a hypothetical count of wage and salary workers and union members in the public and private sectors in two survey years, plus one observation you make in your own week.

• Rows: 2 sectors, one per row of the scaffold's first table, counted in 2 survey years (100,000 and 150,000 wage and salary workers)
• Survey columns: sector; workers and union members in the earlier year; workers and union members in the recent year
• Observation rows: 4 rows you fill in from one rule or order you see followed in your own week

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet)
• A document or notebook for your written answers

Ways of working

• apply-a-perspective-to-a-case
• read-and-interpret-social-data
• structured-observation-and-reflection

Procedure

1. Open a blank sheet. In row 1 type the headers Sector, Workers (earlier), Members (earlier), Workers (recent), and Members (recent) in columns A to E. In rows 2 and 3 copy the two rows of the first table in Part 4. In row 4 type All and add each column with =SUM(B2:B3) and the same formula for columns C, D, and E. Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: Row 4 shows 100000 workers and 20000 members for the earlier year, and 150000 workers and 18000 members for the recent year.
2. In F2 type =C2/B2*100 and copy it down to F4 to get each union membership rate in the earlier year. In G2 type =E2/D2*100 and copy it down to G4 for the recent year. Copy all six rates into the second table in Part 4. Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: Each rate is a share of that row's workers, and the All row's rate is lower in the recent year.
3. In J2 type =G2-F2 and copy it down to J4 to get each change in percentage points. In K2 type =J2/F2*100 and copy it down to K4 to get each change as a percent of the earlier rate. Record both columns, labelled with their units. Tool: Free public data tables (Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research Center, World Bank, Our World in Data, General Social Survey) plus a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or any free spreadsheet). Check: Every rate falls, and the private sector's percent change is the largest of the three rows.
4. Compare counts with rates. Subtract the earlier total of members from the recent total, and divide that change by the earlier total and multiply by 100. Do the same for total workers. Write one sentence on why the overall rate fell far more than the number of members did. Check: The member count fell by a much smaller percent than the overall rate did, while the number of workers grew.
5. Pick one rule or order you see people follow in your own week, such as a referee's call, a manager's schedule, a family custom about who carves or serves, a club leader's request, or a posted parking rule. Spend about 15 minutes watching how people respond to it, then fill in the observation frame in Part 4: who gave the order or set the rule, why people follow it, and whether it is power or authority. Describe the rule or the setting, never name any real person. Check: Every row of the observation frame names something you saw, not a guess about a person's character.
6. Answer the analysis questions in Part 5, then do the AI-critique step in Part 6, or the equivalent route printed there, and write the 3–5 sentence report. Check: Every answer points to a value in your tables, a row of your observation, or a definition from this week, and your report quotes at least two errors with corrections.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no spreadsheet is available.

Work the same steps by hand or with a calculator. Divide each sector's members by its workers and multiply by 100 for each rate, add the two sectors for the totals, subtract the earlier rate from the recent rate for each change in percentage points, and divide that change by the earlier rate and multiply by 100 for the percent. Write every division, subtraction, and sum in your document so it can be checked, complete every scaffold table, answer every analysis question, do the critique step, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

These are the workshop's illustrative survey counts; copy them into your sheet so every rate comes from your own formulas.

Student scaffold table 1

Sector	Workers, earlier year	Members, earlier year	Workers, recent year	Members, recent year	Your note on this row
Public sector	20,000	8,000	30,000	10,800
Private sector	80,000	12,000	120,000	7,200

Record each rate and each change here so your interpretation rests on numbers you produced yourself.

Student scaffold table 2

Sector	Earlier rate (%)	Recent rate (%)	Change (percentage points)	Change (percent of earlier rate)
Public sector
Private sector
All wage and salary workers

Use this observation frame to move from what you saw, to the concept it shows, to why it matters.

Student scaffold table 3

What I observed	Which concept it shows	So what
Who gave the order or set the rule, described by role, not by name
Why people followed it: custom, belief in a leader's rare qualities, written rules and an office, or force
Whether people treated it as legitimate authority or as power alone
What would happen to the order if the person giving it left

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Report each sector's union membership rate and the overall rate in both years, each change in percentage points and in percent of the earlier rate, and the change in total members and in total workers, showing the formula or the arithmetic behind each.
2. Read the survey four ways: what is measured, over whom, what it shows and does not, and whether the pattern is a correlation, a cause, or neither. Then explain in two sentences how the overall rate can fall by 40 percent while the number of members falls by far less, using the difference between a rate and a count.
3. Run the metro's falling union rate through structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, one sentence each, naming each one's level of analysis. Then say what a pluralist and what a power-elite theorist would each point to in this pattern, at full strength and with no verdict.
4. From your observation frame, name the type of authority the rule or order rests on, traditional, charismatic, or rational-legal, or say why it is power without authority, and explain what you saw that tells you. At what level of analysis does your observation work?
5. Name two limits, such as that the survey is illustrative and covers one metro area, that two years cannot show the path between them, that a sector rate says nothing about any one worker, or that one observation is a single case, and say how each limit narrows what you can conclude.
6. Choose one reflection and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) A relative says the metro's figures prove unions are finished; what would you tell them, and what evidence would change your answer? (b) Think of a setting where you follow someone's orders; without naming anyone, which type of authority is it, and what would make you stop treating it as legitimate?

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed workshop tables above. An illustrative metro area counted its wage and salary workers and union members by sector in two survey years. Earlier year: the public sector had 20,000 wage and salary workers, of whom 8,000 were union members, and the private sector had 80,000 workers, of whom 12,000 were union members. Recent year: the public sector had 30,000 workers, of whom 10,800 were union members, and the private sector had 120,000 workers, of whom 7,200 were union members. Please do five things. First, tell me what share of Americans belong to a union and what the U.S. union membership rate was in 1983 and in 2025. Second, tell me who wrote The Power Elite and who named charismatic authority as a type of legitimate authority. Third, describe what kind of people tend to join unions. Fourth, explain whether the growth of private-sector jobs caused the fall in this metro's overall union rate. Fifth, the metro's private-sector rate fell to a low level; does that mean a private-sector worker I meet in this metro is not in a union?

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often give a national union figure from memory with the wrong year, call it a share of all Americans, or cite a study with no source.
• Chatbots often credit The Power Elite to Weber or Marx, or credit charismatic authority to Durkheim or to Mills.
• Chatbots often describe union members from a stereotype, naming an age, a gender, or a kind of job as the people who join unions.
• Chatbots often say the growth of private-sector jobs caused the overall rate to fall, as if the table tested it.
• Chatbots often read the low private-sector rate as a fact about one worker, saying the worker you meet is not in a union.

In 3–5 sentences, say what the chatbot got right, quote at least two sentences it got wrong, and correct each one with evidence from your tables or this week's definitions.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. This route assesses the same objectives, Objective 7 (explain the major social institutions — family, education, religion, the economy and work, and government and politics — through the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives, including Weber's types of authority and the pluralist and power-elite models) and Objective 2 (describe and evaluate the major sociological research methods (surveys, experiments, field research and ethnography, secondary-data analysis), distinguish reliability from validity and a population from a sample, and read a social statistic critically — what it measures, over what population and period, what it shows and does not, and whether it is a correlation or a cause), takes comparable effort of about the same 90 minutes, uses the same rubric, and earns the same credit. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "The metro's table proves that the growth of private companies caused unions to collapse. Only 12% of the people in the metro belong to a union now, and a national study shows that union members always earn twice as much as other workers. Weber showed in The Power Elite that a small group runs everything. Union members are mostly older factory workers who resist change. So the next private-sector worker you meet in this metro is certainly not in a union." Mark every error you can find, quote at least two, and correct each one in 3–5 sentences with evidence from your tables or this week's definitions. Submit the marked-up analysis and your correction in place of the chatbot report and share link.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• All three completed scaffold tables, including your observation frame
• Written answers to all six analysis questions
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Sociology in Action Workshop report on one metro area's union survey and one authority observation: three completed tables (the survey with your notes, the rates and changes, and your observation frame), written answers to six analysis questions, and a critique of a chatbot's answers to the same questions, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose how you show it: written answers, a recorded explanation with a transcript, or a labelled diagram of the rates and your observation with short notes; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Computing the rates, changes, and totals	Every sector rate and overall rate, both changes for each row, and the change in total members and workers are computed from the workshop's counts with the formulas or arithmetic shown, and each change is labelled in percentage points or in percent.	Most values are computed, but one rate or change is missing or wrong, a step is not shown, or a change in percentage points is labelled as a percent.	No values are reported, or the values are invented rather than computed.
Reading the survey: rates, counts, sectors, and base	The answer reads the survey four ways, names wage and salary workers as the base, explains how the rate can fall far more than the member count, says what the overall rate hides about the two sectors, calls the pattern a description rather than a cause, and refuses to apply a sector rate to one worker.	The answer reads the survey but either treats the pattern as a cause, reads a rate as a share of all people, applies a rate to one worker, or leaves out how a rate and a count can move apart.	No answer is given, or the survey is read as proof that unions are finished.
Perspectives, power models, and the authority observation	The pattern is read through all three perspectives with each level named and through the pluralist and power-elite models with no verdict, and the observation names the type of authority, or power without authority, with evidence from what was seen, describing a rule rather than any person.	One perspective, model, or level is missing, one view is stated unfairly, or the observation names a type without the evidence that supports it.	No interpretation or observation is given, or the observation judges a person rather than describing a rule or setting.
Critique and correction	The chatbot critique report or the marked-up flawed analysis quotes at least two errors and corrects each with evidence from the tables or this week's definitions; both routes earn this band equally.	The chatbot critique report or the marked-up flawed analysis names an error but corrects it without evidence, or corrects only one; both routes earn this band equally.	No chatbot critique report or marked-up flawed analysis is submitted, or the output is pasted without any check; both routes are scored the same way.
Limits and reflection	Two real limits are named with their effect on the conclusion, and the chosen reflection option is answered with a reason.	One limit is named, or a limit is named without its effect, or the reflection gives no reason.	No limit or reflection is given.

Quality Gate

• Every rate, change, count, and total in your tables comes from your own formulas or your own hand calculation from the workshop's counts, never from memory or a chatbot.
• Every difference between two rates is written in percentage points, and every percent change is labelled as a percent of the earlier rate.
• Your survey answer names wage and salary workers as the base of every rate and calls the pattern a description, not a cause.
• Your answers never apply a sector's rate to one worker.
• Your perspective answers and your pluralist and power-elite readings state each view at full strength and declare no winner.
• Your observation describes a rule, order, or setting, not any real person's character, and names no one.
• No statistic, study, or source is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence.