Winning for Workers: A Look at How Unions Impact Wages
Ken Green
CEO & Founder
UnionTrack
A new labor movement has swept across the United States in recent years. Now, the pressure is on unions to maintain its momentum.
Labor leaders are tasked with finding ways to connect with more workers and encourage them to exercise their rights to unionize. One way to do this is by taking charge of the narrative around paying union dues.
To suppress worker organizing, anti-union forces spread false messaging about how unions collect too much money from members (and how they use that money for their own selfish purposes).
The reality is unions use dues to defend the rights of workers and improve everyone’s working conditions. Unions must do a better job at explaining these misconceptions to potential members.
Demonstrating how union members consistently earn higher wages is one of the most effective ways to do that.
Pay Data for Union Workers vs. Nonunion Workers
Union members’ wages are higher than those of nonunion workers.
The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows union members had median weekly earnings 18 percent higher than the earnings for nonunion workers ($1,029 versus $1,216).
In fact, being a union member can prove more lucrative than being a college graduate. According to a 2022 paper by Zachary Parolin and Tom VanHeuvelen in Cornell University’s ILR Review, “Unionization throughout one’s career is associated with a $1.3 million mean increase in lifetime earnings, larger than the average gains from completing college.”
Parolin and VanHeuvelen also note that this premium accounts for the fact that union workers tend to retire earlier.
18 percent higher earnings and $1.3 million increase lifetime is a significant boost for union workers; how do unions achieve this? By collectively bargaining and fighting for higher hourly wages and higher salaries.
Unions Raise Wages for Nonunion Workers
Unions have a positive impact on wages for all workers across different industries, even for those whose workplaces aren’t unionized.
“Unions set a standard for working conditions in industries in which they are prevalent,” write the Joint Economic Committee Democrats (JEC) in a brief about the advantages of union membership.
“If employers have to compete for workers who have a good chance of getting a union job, non-union employers have to pay higher wages and offer better benefits to attract and retain workers. As a result, average wages are higher in highly unionized industries even if a worker is not themselves in a union.”
To illustrate, according to a 2021 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the average median wages were $1,121.70 a week in the 10 most union-dense states and $942.70 a week in the 10 least union-dense states.
Union Membership Raises Wages for Minority Workers
Women and workers of color benefit the most from union-negotiated higher wages.
“Nonunion women workers earn, on average, 78 percent of what men earn, while unionized women workers earn 94 percent of what men earn,” writes Steven Greenhouse, senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
Further, Black and Hispanic workers get a bigger wage boost than their white peers through unionization. “Unions increase wealth for all families and narrow the racial wealth gap by offering greater wealth premiums for Black, Hispanic, and other or multiple race workers,” Aurelia Glass, David Madland, and Christian E. Weller at the Center for American Progress write.
The JEC report backs this up, noting that “unionization increases wages by 17.3% for Black workers and 23.1% for Latino workers.” These stats demonstrate just how important unions are to ensuring workers earn a living wage and addressing wage inequality across the U.S.
It’s crucial to share this information with the public to encourage unionization in more workplaces. A tool like UnionTrack® ENGAGE® can help union leaders spread that message to organizers and supporters to further bolster unionizing efforts.
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