Lower-wage earners receiving most benefits from unions

http://www.projo.com/projojobs/content/JO_UNIONWAGE_06-01-08_I9A8CJ6_v15.116aa47.html

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 1, 2008

By Andy Smith

Journal Staff Writer


New England Health Care Employees Union workers picket outside Butler Hospital last month. Nationally, wages for union members average 11.9 percent more than wages for nonunion ones.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

A study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit research and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., found that the economic advantages of belonging to a union are greater for lower-paid workers.

Nationally, wages for union members average 11.9 percent more than wages for comparable workers who do not belong to a union. The study, which covers the period between 2003 and last year, calculates the unionized share of the national work force at 13.9 percent, a figure that includes people who do not belong to unions but are still covered by union contracts. Under that standard, Rhode Island’s percentage of unionized workers in the report is 16.7 percent.

According to the center, economic data has long supported what it calls “a wage premium” for unionized workers. In a study titled “The Union Wage Advantage for Low-Wage Workers,” economist John Schmitt broke down workers by income, and he found that the advantage of belonging to a union is higher for workers at the lower end of the economic scale.

The study divides workers into percentiles. Someone in the 10th percentile makes less than 90 percent of all workers. A median, or 50th-percentile worker, is in the middle of wage distribution, with half of all workers making more and half of all workers earning less. And a worker in the 90th percentile makes more than 90 percent of all workers.

Looking at national statistics from 2003 through last year, the study found that union workers in the 10th percentile enjoyed a 20.6-percent advantage over their nonunion counterparts, but a worker in the 90th percentile had only a 6.1-percent advantage.

Schmitt said workers at the bottom end of the wage scale have the least amount of bargaining power, and even a small gain won through a union represents a proportionately larger increase in their salary than for, say, members of an airline pilots union. Schmitt said the estimate of the union premium is a conservative one, because it does not include the improved health benefits and retirement plans that also come with union representation.

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