Economic Policy Institution: weakening collective bargaining negatively affects union & non-union wages

According to a new report issued by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the national decline in collective bargaining has undercut wages and benefits not only for union members, but for nonunion workers as well. That fact should be obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention to what’s happening in regards to the ever-widening disparity in wages and income between the richest Americans and everyone else, but here are a few key points from the EPI’s report.

  • The union wage premium—the percentage-higher wage earned by those covered by a collective bargain­ing contract, adjusted for workers’ education, age, and other characteristics—is 13.6 percent over­all.
  • Unionized workers are 28.2 percent more likely to be covered by employer-provided health insurance and 53.9 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions, and also enjoy more paid time off with their families.
  • Collective bargaining raises the wages and benefits more for low-wage workers than for middle-wage workers and least for white-collar workers, thereby lessening wage inequality.
  • Collective bargaining also raises wages and benefits more for black, Asian, Hispanic, and immigrant workers, thereby lessening race/ethnic wage gaps.
  • The decline of unions has affected middle-wage men more than any other group and explains about three-fourths of the expanded wage gap between white- and blue-collar men and over a fifth of the expanded wage gap between high school– and college-edu­cated men from 1978 to 2011.5
  • The states where collective bargaining eroded the most since 1979 had the lowest growth in middle-class wages and the largest gap between rising productivity growth and middle-class wage growth.

Here in Wisconsin thousands upon thousands of public employees can directly attest to the fact that weakening collective bargaining (or outright eliminating it in many cases) has led to a series decline in wages, and I’m betting non-union employees will soon feel the pain of public employees – if they haven’t already.

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2 thoughts on “Economic Policy Institution: weakening collective bargaining negatively affects union & non-union wages

  1. It never ceases to amaze me that those on the right cannot see that the less money that people have to spend, the less demand there will be for products that businesses and companies provide or manufacture. All the tax cuts for companies and corporations are not going to lead CEO’s or employers to hire or expand jobs if there is no increased demand for what they produce or market. Sadly the anti-union movement that Walker and his band of merry men endorse is only allowing the well-off to use their wealth to increase their plenty within the financial sphere not invest in business and manufacturing that would lead to jobs and more income equality. As long as the wealthy can increase their wealth on Wall Street there is no way that they will care about Main Street!

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