Union Women Earn More, But Still Less Than Men

Unionized professional women receive better wages and benefits than women in the non-union sector but women still make less than their male counterparts according to a new fact sheet. “The union difference is quite apparent when you look at the median weekly wages” for professional women, according to Professional Women: Vital Statistics, a fact sheet just published by the Department of Professional Employees (DPE), AFL-CIO. Examples include “union preschool and kindergarten teachers earned a whopping 56.7% more than their non-union counterparts…union librarians earned almost 29% more than their non-union counterparts, while union social workers and counselors earned 27 and 26.4% more, respectively.” But the wage gap “still plagues the American workforce,” says the report. In 2006, the “median weekly earnings for women were 80.8% those of men.” The report also provides statistics on women’s educational attainment, the employment distribution of men and women within professional and other occupations, and the changing American family.