Women are well on the way to overtaking men in the ranks of organized labor
-- and for good reason. As a new study shows, women who’ve joined unions
have significantly better pay and benefits than working women who have not
joined.
Although only about a fifth of women workers overall currently belong to
unions, they already make up about 45 percent of all unionized workers.
They’re expected to become a majority within a dozen years, according to the
study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The study makes clear the advantages of union membership that have attracted
increasing numbers of women. Unionized women, for instance, average 11
percent or about $2 an hour more than non-union women. Three-fourths of
union women have employer-financed health care benefits, but only about half
their non-union counterparts have those benefits. Three-fourths of the
unionized women have pensions, less than half of those outside unions have
pensions.
Like other unionized workers, they also can expect paid holidays and
vacations and premium pay for overtime work.
The union advantage is particularly strong for women in lower-paid
occupations -- food preparation workers, for example, cashiers, stock
clerks, child-care workers, housekeepers, teaching assistants, security
guards and others. About 11 percent of them are in unions, with median pay
of $12 an hour. That’s $3 an hour more than non-union women holding such
jobs
There’s an even greater advantage in benefits for the lower-paid women.
About 60 percent of the lower paid women in unions have health care
benefits, only a little over 25 percent of those who are not unionized.
About 60 percent of the unionized workers also have pensions, only about 20
percent of the non-union workers.
Despite womens’ growing presence – and influence – in unions, and despite
the 45-year-old federal Equal Pay Act, women in general still lag
considerably behind men in compensation. Women in unions generally work
under contracts that guarantee them the same pay and benefits as men doing
the same work, one of the most important advantages that unionized women
enjoy.
Women who aren’t in unions often have no such guarantee, despite the law and
state laws like it. Overall, women currently average only 77 cents in pay
for every dollar earned by men. That’s a difference of more than 20
percent. If that difference is to shrink, if sufficient pressure is to be
put on government to finally guarantee women the pay equity that the law has
long promised them, the pressure will have to come from unions.
And the pressure to get unions to act will have to come from women, as it
undoubtedly will as the number of unionized women continues to grow. That
growth is also crucial to the revitalization of the labor movement, as is
the new growth in the number of younger unionists that was shown in another
recent study by the Center for Economic Policy and Research.
As the economy has been worsening, workers aged 18 to 29 have been turning
to unions, for the same reasons that more women in all age groups have been
joining unions. The average pay of unionized young workers is more than 12
percent higher than that of non-union workers of the same age. They are
twice as likely to have health care, three times as likely to have pensions.
Some say that the continuing increase in the number of women in unions
combined with the continuing increase in the number of young members
signals nothing less than a rebirth of labor. And it could be. It could very
well be.
Copyright © 2008 Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist who has
covered labor issues for a half-century. Contact him through his website,
www.dickmeister.com.
