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Union workers earn 29% more, official figures show
UNION MEMBERS earn more money than non-union members, according official figures released in January.
Nationally, full-time wage and salary workers who were union members last year had median weekly earnings of $801, according to figures released in January by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That figure is 29 percent higher than the median of $622 for non-union workers.
The release also shows Washington State is bucking the national trend toward declining union membership. The state added 13,000 new union members last year, bringing the total number of union members in the state to an estimated 523,000, the bureau reported.
Washington continues to rank sixth highest in the nation in terms of the unionization rate, which now stands at a little more than 19 percent. The rate is only fractionally lower than that in 2004, even though the state added 100,000 new jobs in 2005.
“In a political climate that’s hostile to workers’ rights, these numbers illustrate the extraordinary will of workers to gain a voice on the job despite enormous obstacles,” afl-cio President John Sweeney said.
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