Employment Trends - … But Union Labor Is Ahead Of The Rest

Union membership is down, as shown in the last panel, but this chart shows that union members, and those who work under union contracts, outpace other workers by a substantial margin a week — about $135 a week on average in the selected years shown here. Again, on average, union members earn just shy of 25% more than those not covered by union contracts at all.

Data are expressed in deflated year 2000 dollars so that trends can be clearly seen. In this period — 1983 through 2000 — no strong trends are discernible. Income growth has been strongest in the non-unionized segment (0.5% a year) and slowest in the union member category (0.22%) a year; those working under union contracts have increased earnings more than union members (0.25%). Growth, in other words, has been inversely proportional to the level of the pay received.

The decline in the unionized work force appears to be due in part to the substantial median wage differential between unionized and non-union workers. Employers appear intent on reducing this differential by various means — including the export of high-paying jobs to low-wage countries, decertification efforts, and other means.

Other forces at work are the substantial growth in the services sector — large portions of which are not unionized, the growing productivity of industrial labor, which ultimately erodes highly skilled jobs, and the consequent efforts, by labor organizations, to recruit members from public sector organizations, which tend to be lower paid and more heavily skewed toward the clerical. The following table shows the shift of union membership from private to public sector organizations:

Share of Sectors and Growth Rates

	1983	2000	1983-2000 growth or decline
Union membership (000)	17,717	16,268	-8.0
Covered by unions (000)	20,532	17,944	-12.6
Private sector membership share -%	67.6	56.2	-11.4
Public sector membership share -%	32.4	43.7	11.3
Private sector coverage share -%	65.4	55.6	-9.8
Public sector coverage share -%	34.6	44.4	9.8

Overall, both union membership and the number of those covered by unions are down over this 17-year period. The only gains shown are in the public sector's share of unionized jobs.

Sources: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1980-2001, United States Department of Commerce. Charted data have been normalized to 2000 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index, All Items series.