Reasons for Joining Labor Unions

• Labor unions are organizations that represent workers and negotiate with employers on behalf of their members. Labor unions function on the principle of collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is the idea that by banding together, union workers will have more bargaining power than they would as individuals. There are several potential benefits that labor unions can offer to members.

Higher Wages

• One of the primary reasons workers choose to join labor unions is that unionized workers are often paid higher wages than non-union members. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median usual weekly earnings of $908, while those who were not represented by unions had median weekly earnings of $710" in 2009. In other words, the average union worker earned more than 20 percent more than the average non-union worker in 2009. The positive effect of labor union membership on wages is consistent across the majority of sectors in the economy, according to BLS data.

Better Benefits

• Another reason to join a labor union is the potential for receiving better work benefits. Unionized workers may have access to better health care benefits and work standards than non-union workers. Unions also have the power to negotiate with employers on issues important to the workforce. For instance, if the workers at a steel factory feel that they have to work too long without breaks, a union might be able to negotiate with an employer to institute mandatory breaks.

Power of the Individual

• Another potential benefit of union membership is that unions can grant more power to the individual worker. A non-union worker may only be able to appeal to his superiors about issues in the workplace and superiors might be more interested in the bottom line of the business and their own job performance than addressing the issues of each worker. Union members can bring up issues at union meetings among peers and potentially get the union to take the issue up with the employer. Union members may also be able to file grievances against superiors or other workers for a variety of issues that take place within the workplace.

Considerations

• Union membership has become less common over the past two decades as the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector -- a sector with traditionally high union membership rates -- has declined. According to the BLS, workers in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rates in 2009" at more than 35 percent. Workers in the public sector were more likely to be unionized than private sector workers.