February 2, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Union members earn more in most industries
Median weekly
earnings for union members who worked full time in 1999 were about 30
percent higher than the median for nonunion workers. Union members had
median usual weekly earnings of $672, compared with a median of $516 for
wage and salary employees who were not represented by a union.
![Difference between median weekly earnings of union members and non-members, 1998](../../../images/2000/Feb/wk1/art03.gif) [Chart data—TXT]
Earnings differences varied widely among broad industry groups. The
largest difference was found among workers in the construction industry.
Union members there earned $778 a week, more than half again the earnings
of nonunion workers in the industry.
Earnings for union members were about one-fifth higher than those for
non-members in government, transportation and public utilities, and trade.
Smaller differences prevailed in manufacturing and services, while
nonunion workers actually earned slightly more than union members in
mining and finance, insurance, and real estate.
These 1999 data on union membership are
from the Current
Population Survey. Earnings data in
this article are for full-time wage and salary workers. Earnings
differences reflect a variety of influences in addition to coverage by a
collective bargaining agreement, including variations in the distribution
of union members and nonunion employees by occupation, industry, firm
size, or geographic region. Find out more in "Union
Members in 1999," news release
USDL 00-16.
Of interest
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