There are multiple reasons for this union effect. Collective bargaining agreements often standardize wage rates across similar occupations doing similar tasks, and establish objective procedures for hiring and awarding raises and promotions. Unions can narrow the wage gap between workers with different skills; they can also increase skill levels by providing high-quality apprenticeships and other training programs for workers without college degrees. Unions also often bargain for pay transparency and grievance procedures for discrimination cases. All of these measures can reduce wage differentials and occupational segregation in the workplace itself, as well as help offset the negative career effects of unequal access to good schools and job-hiring networks. As is the case in other U.S. institutions, there is a long history of racism, sexism, and nativism in the U.S. labor movement, which unions continue to work to address. But over time, women, workers of color, and immigrants have seen gains in union leadership and Black workers in particular have above-average rates of unionization (Jacobs and Thomason 2018).
In this report, we present data for the state of California on the union advantage in wages and employer-sponsored health and retirement benefits for women, workers of color, and immigrants.
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