Unions have historically played a role in improving wages and benefits by enabling workers to join together to negotiate with employers. Recent research finds a persistent positive effect of unions on members’ wages and household income (Farber et al. 2018). On their own, individual workers have little bargaining power with employers. When bargaining together, workers have raised not only their own wages, they have also helped to set higher standards that improve wages for union and non-union workers alike (Bivens et al. 2017). Income inequality in the United States has risen as the share of workers covered by a union contract has declined (Farber et al. 2018).
In this report we analyze the difference in the wages, benefits, and use of public safety net programs of workers covered by union contracts in California compared to non-union workers with similar demographic characteristics and working in similar industries.
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