Unions Cut US Income Inequality, Treasury Department Says
As a countrywide unionization movement sweeps its way across various industries in 2023, the U.S. Treasury Department released a report concluding that unions are positive for economic growth and the well-being of the middle class.
Within the report, the administration publicized the benefits these labor organizations can provide workers, noting that unions raise the wages of their members by 10 to 15 percent, and that they reduce overall income inequality.
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In 17 out of 21 types of occupations, union members’ weekly wages are higher than those of non-union members, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data cited in the Treasury report. The exceptions are four types of occupations that are typically non-union: management; sales; business and financial; and computer and mathematics.
Beyond wages, the unions have helped improve worker safety, according to the report. For example, after the passage of the union-backed Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, the rate of non-fatal work-related injuries and illnesses from 1972 to 2018 fell nearly fourfold from 11 cases to three cases per 100 full-time workers, the report said, citing BLS data.
Unions also improve fringe benefits and workplace procedures such as retirement plans, workplace grievance policies and predictable scheduling, the report says, with the department highlighting that “these workplace improvements contribute substantially to middle-class financial stability and worker well-being.” For example, one study has estimated that the average worker values their ability to avoid short-notice schedule changes at up to 20 percent of their wages.
These unions have brought logistics employees significant wins this summer, with 340,000 UPS employees and West Coast port dockworkers both negotiating new contracts that bolster their wages and deliver various benefits. For example, the Teamsters-represented UPS drivers brokered a deal to add air conditioning in their vehicles, while the dockworkers got a “hero bonus” for working through the early parts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The victories extended outside the U.S., with Canadian West Coast dockworkers also signing a new labor deal of their own after a 13-day strike.
Currently, 67 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, according to a recent Gallup poll of 1,014 adults. But the support gains steam among younger audiences. According to polling by public opinion research GBAO conducted for the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the U.S., 88 percent of people under 30 say they approve of labor unions, while 90 percent say they approve of strikes.
More attempts at unionization have taken place at Amazon, where a Staten Island warehouse won the right to organize with the Amazon Labor Union in 2022.
And at the end of August, 26 workers at trucking company ECM Transport, which is majority-owned by Werner Enterprises, voted to unionize across three facilities in New Jersey.
The workers, who won representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), are just a sliver of Werner’s more than 14,000 employees. But the move caught the attention of Werner CEO Derek Leathers, who visited the workers ahead of the vote. During the visit, Leathers made the trucking firm’s case against unionization.
The Treasury Department report was released just three days after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) introduced a new framework for determining when employers are required to bargain with unions without a representation election.
The new framework means companies found to have committed illegal acts during unionization election efforts will be forced to immediately bargain with the union, instead of the previous enforcement to run the election again.
Long delays and appeals have drawn out union election certifications, such as at Amazon, where objections over a rerun election at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. in early 2022 are still being litigated. Amazon has still not recognized the ALU’s victory in Staten Island either, and has refused to bargain with the group.
The framework stems from a case in which cement truck drivers at construction company Cemex collected a majority of support in union authorization cards to file for a union election, at which point the board said Cemex engaged in 20 instances of objectionable or unlawful conduct leading up to the election.
Teamsters-represented employees lost by a vote of 179 to 166, but rather than ordering a rerun election, the NLRB ordered Cemex to bargain with the union.
The new framework was issued a day after the board also rescinded delays in union elections implemented under the Trump administration, aiming to expedite the time and processes from a union election petition filing to the election and resolving post-election disputes more quickly.
The Biden-Harris administration has taken various steps designed to advance union progress, including creating the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, which works with agencies on ways to use their existing statutory authority to support worker organizing and bargaining.
In the 2022 omnibus bill passed last December, the administration’s budget increased funding to the NLRB by 9 percent, or $25 million. This was the first increase since 2014 and is designed to allow the board to strengthen and expand its enforcement efforts.
