Union membership in Hawai'i rose to 24.3 percent of the state's workforce last year amid widespread job losses and credit woes.

The ranks of organized labor rose to 136,000 last year from 130,000 in 2007 when union members made up 23.4 percent of the workforce, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday. That makes Hawai'i the state with the second-highest percentage of union members, behind only New York. Hawai'i overtook Alaska, which dropped to third highest in 2008 from second highest in 2007.