Organized labor still a popular, powerful force

 

Bill Knight column for 2-22, 23 or 25, 2021

 Most people know with certainty, or at least have a strong hunch, that there are real advantages to working jobs with contracts bargained collectively between people elected to negotiate and employers.

The union difference.

And now, there’s more evidence of that fact.

The union edge is sharp in higher pay, safer work, and better job security, all of which together translate to an increasing popularity of labor unions by everyday Americans.

The number of U.S. union members is down slightly, but unions’ density in the overall work force is up, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual “Union Members Survey,” released a few weeks ago.

The number of workers represented by a union is now 15.9 million, down 2.7% (about 444,000), but the percentage of union workers in the entire labor force is 10.8% – up 0.5 percentage points, according to BLS, which collects its data as part of the Current Population Survey, surveying 60,000 households.

One explanation is the 9.6 million drop in overall employment related to the pandemic, and much of that job loss was felt by non-union workers. Therefore, that reinforced that union contracts not only gave workers higher pay in 2020, but better job protection.

But the higher pay remains significant.

“The median weekly wage for all workers in the U.S. rose from $917 in 2019 to $984 in 2020, compared to the year before,” reported Mark Gruenberg of Press Associates. “That 7.3% increase is higher than figures in other BLS reports, but for the purposes of this column, the union report’s numbers govern.

The median weekly wage for all union workers rose from $1,095 to $1,144 (4.5%),” he continued.

So: Subtract $958 from $1,144 and that leaves a $186 median weekly difference. (The median is the mid-point, with half the workers are above and half below). That shows union workers have a 19.4% premium in pay. Almost one-fifth better.

A breakdown of a few segments according to race also reveals union pay advantages:

* All white men: $1,003, unionized white men $1,243 – better by 23.9%.

* All Black men: $794; unionized Black men $965 – a 21.5% advantage.

* All Hispanic workers: $758; unionized Hispanics $1,016 – a 34% premium.

 The COVID-19 pandemic is showing more people the union difference, which also includes better access to personal protective equipment, hazard pay, and safer working conditions, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka made the connection between the pandemic and public support for unions.

“The majority of Americans support unions,” he said on CNBC. “We have a pro-labor Senate, House and White House. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the labor landscape into one that works for all of us.”

An MIT poll in 2018 showed that some 48% of non-union workers would join a union if they could – representing about 58 million workers, or half the non-union labor force.

Also, in 2020, Gallup reported survey results that 65% of all Americans approve of labor unions, including 83% of Democrats, 64% of independents and 45% of Republicans.

Other facts from BLS’ report:

* the state of Illinois ranks 14th in the nation in union density, at 15.2% of employed workers. Also, that 15.2% was up from 2019’s 14.7%.;

* the public-sector rate of unionization is 34.8% overall, with fire fighters and police together at 36.6%, and education, training and library occupations at 35.9%; and

* looking at unionists’ ages, the highest membership rate is for people 45-64 years old.

             So: Maybe “only” 1 out of 10 working people is in a union, but that’s almost 16 million Americans. Compare that to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (300,000), the American Conservative Union (500,000), the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (600,000), the American Civil Liberties Union (1.7 million), the NAACP (2 million), the Knights of Columbus (2 million), the National Rifle Association (5 million), and the American Farm Bureau (6 million – there are just 2 million farmers, but the FB counts those with FB insurance or other affiliates).