Union members continued to make more money and saw stronger wage growth than non-union counterparts last year, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But despite earning employees larger compensation and seeing their ranks grow, unions represented a smaller percentage of the workforce in 2014.
Median weekly earnings of union members and workers represented by unions increased by $20 and $21 respectively, to $970 and $965. Non-union workers, meanwhile, only saw median weekly wages increase by $13, to $763.
The total number of union members and workers represented by unions increased by 48,000 and 124,000 to just under 14.6 million and 16.2 million. The rates of membership and representation, however, fell by 0.2 and 0.1 percent, to 11.1 and 12.2 percent.
Two bright spot for labor unions, in terms of rate growth, occurred in the public sector and among women who identify as Asian. The rate of union membership and representation for Asian women was up by 1.9 and 1.8 percent, to 11.8 and 12.6 percent. The rate of public sector workers belonging to and represented by unions was up by 0.4 and 0.5 percent, to 35.7 and 39.2 percent.
This week, President Obama became the first President to mention American labor unions in a State of the Union speech since Ronald Reagan, in 2013, praised the US for having “free trade unions”–institutions he very much sought to weaken.
Tuesday night, Obama said that the country needs “laws that strengthen rather than weaken unions, and give American workers a voice,” without offering specific details.
In 2004, President George W. Bush did mention organized labor, but in the context of using the National Endowment for Democracy to export “free elections and free markets, free press and free labor unions” to the Middle East.
