Report: Latinos in Unions Fare Better Than Nonunion Peers

by James Parks, Sep 30, 2008

The current economic crisis is hitting Latinos hard and they need the same help that all workers do—better wages, safe working conditions and a union. A new report marks National Hispanic Heritage Month with the news that the union difference benefits Latino workers, just as it does all other union workers.

In the report, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) documents a large wage and benefit advantage for Latino workers who join unions compared with their nonunion counterparts. The report, Unions and Upward Mobility for Latino Workers, found that unionized Latino workers earned, on average, 17.6 percentage points more than nonunion Latinos. Latino union members also were much more likely to have health insurance benefits and a pension plan.

(The AFL-CIO Union Difference figures here, show that Latinos in unions make 51 percentage points more than their nonunion peers. The AFL-CIO data compare all union members with all nonunion workers. The CEPR study uses regression analysis to attempt to control for other differences between workers, such as education, age, gender, industry, etc.)

Says John Schmitt, a senior economist at CEPR and author of the report:

Latinos are the fastest growing group in the U.S. labor force and the fastest growing group inside the U.S. labor movement. The data show that unions make a big difference in wages and benefits for Latino workers.

Here are some of the key findings of the CEPR report, which analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data:

• Union membership raises the pay of Latino workers by about $2.60 per hour. Latino workers in unions were also 26 percentage points more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and 27 percent more likely to have an employer-provided pension plan than Latino workers who were not in unions.
• Joining a union also strongly benefits Latino workers in low-wage occupations. Among Latino workers in the 15 lowest-paying occupations, union members earned 16.6 percentage points more than those workers who were not in unions. In the same low-wage occupations, Latinos in unions were 41 percentage points more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and 18 percentage points more likely to have a pension plan than their nonunion counterparts.

The full report can be found here. Last year Latinos made up about 14 percent of all U.S. workers, up from about 5 percent at the end of the 1970s. In the early 1980s, some 6 percent of all union workers in the United States were Latinos. By last year that number had doubled to nearly 12 percent.

While Latino union members fare better than nonunion Latinos, economic times are hard all around for all workers. But Latinos and other workers of color are being hit especially hard. That’s why this nation needs to make major changes in its economic policies, according to Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA).

Says LCLAA President Milton Rosado:

The numbers don’t lie. Between the year 2000 and 2007, households throughout the nation experienced a 0.6 percent decrease in real median income, while Hispanics in particular suffered a total decline of 3.1 percent. The inability of increased productivity to result in increased income for households shows us that although the nation’s workers are producing more, they are not sharing in on the growth they’re creating.

Like other workers, Latinos are finding that their wages have stalled while the prices of basic necessities are increasing—food is becoming more expensive and people are burdened with exorbitant gas prices. Latino working families are experiencing a depletion of their finances as they struggle to obtain the bare necessities. Facing limited economic opportunities, they’re losing their jobs along with their ability to put food on the table, pay their bills and provide their family with health care.

The economic realities cry out for new policies to help all workers, says Dr. Gabriela Lemus, LCLAA’s executive director.

Since August of last year, approximately 600,000 Latinos are now unemployed. This is outrageous. Workers cannot be allowed to go down with the economy; they are a fundamental component of it and essential in generating the economic demand that we desperately need. Congress needs to start passing policies that acknowledge and protect what’s important to working families, essential policies such as national health care for all and the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can bargain with their employers for living wages and benefits. These are policies we need and we need them now.

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