A group of employees who organize together to bargain with their employer over pay, hours, and conditions — a right under the National Labor Relations Act. About 1 in 10 U.S. workers belongs to one.
Source: NLRA, 29 U.S.C. §157; BLS Union Members, 2025.
What does a union do to your paycheck?
What union and nonunion workers earn.
Median pay for full-time workers: $1,404 vs $1,174 a week, shown here by month (weekly × 52 ÷ 12). BLS Union Members, 2025. This is a raw gap. It doesn't adjust for the job, the industry, age, or where people live. When you compare similar workers, the gap is smaller — about 10%. The 2025 figures cover 11 months; BLS did not collect October 2025 data during the government shutdown.
Percent of workers who have this benefit, by union status.
A defined-benefit pension pays a guaranteed amount for life. Union workers keep these at more than six times the nonunion rate.
The 401(k) is the nonunion substitute for a pension; union workers more often hold the guaranteed pension instead.
Paid family leave spread first through white-collar employers, where few workers are union. Union contracts more often locked in sick leave, holidays, and pensions.
Here the pattern flips — nonunion workers have more access:
All figures: BLS, Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2023 — private industry, by union representation (tables 1–6). National figures for private-industry workers; public-sector workers (where union membership is highest) are surveyed separately, so if anything these understate the union advantage. BLS does not publish these splits by sector.
With the numbers, where they exist — and honest blanks where they don't.
Unions set their own dues, typically 1–2% of gross pay (about 1.5% is most common), deducted each pay period. Union dues are no longer deductible on most federal tax returns.
Strikes are relatively rare, but there's no honest percentage for how often bargaining ends in one — no agency publishes the total number of negotiations to compare against. For scale: about 30 major work stoppages (1,000+ workers) began in 2025, and most strikes are short. If a strike happens, it can mean temporary lost income, and workers who strike over pay can be permanently replaced.
Promotions and shifts more often go by time on the job than by manager judgment. This protects longer-serving workers but can slow advancement for newer ones. No single reliable percentage captures how often it applies.
Pay and terms are set collectively through the union contract rather than negotiated one-on-one between you and your employer. That trade — individual flexibility for collective leverage — cuts differently for different workers.
Dues: unions' own published dues schedules; deductibility per the Internal Revenue Code as amended in 2025. Strikes: BLS Major Work Stoppages, 2025. Seniority effects are documented in labor-economics research but don't reduce to a single reliable statistic — shown as "not quantified" rather than estimated.
Common claims about unions — from both sides — checked against primary sources. Where the evidence is mixed, we say so.
Dues usually run 1–2% of pay (about 1.5% is common). For similar workers, union pay runs roughly 10% higher on average — several times the cost of dues. But it isn't automatic: the raise depends on winning a contract.
Union dues schedules; Blanchflower & Bryson (2024), ~10% controlled hourly wage premium. See Sources.
You can't be fired for striking. And workers who strike because their employer broke the law must get their jobs back. But workers who strike over pay can be permanently replaced. They keep the right to be called back later — not the right to return right away.
NLRA §7 and §13; NLRB v. Mackay Radio (1938). See Sources.
A union is a real organization. It has officers and staff, and it reports its finances to the government. But it's one the workers choose. They ask for it, vote it in, elect its leaders, approve its contracts, and can vote it out. It speaks for them — it isn't an outsider forced on them.
NLRA §7 and §9. See Sources.
This is the same legal fact as the fear above, seen from the other side. You can't be fired for striking, but workers who strike over pay can be permanently replaced. It still happens: in the 2017 Charter/Spectrum strike — the longest in U.S. history — the company kept running with replacement workers and the union was ultimately defeated.
NLRB v. Mackay Radio (1938); Charter/Spectrum strike (2017). See Sources.
Members' dues can fund political activity. A worker who objects can resign membership and pay only for bargaining-related costs; public employees can opt out of all fees. But the worker has to take those steps — by default, most members' dues do fund some politics.
CWA v. Beck (1988); Janus v. AFSCME (2018). See Sources.
Union contracts make firing slower and require just cause, and arbitrators can order a worker rehired — critics say this shields poor performers. The same rules also block arbitrary or retaliatory firing, and unions can refuse to defend weak cases. Whether the net effect helps or hurts is an open dispute among researchers.
Critical: Terry Moe, Special Interest (Brookings, 2011). Counter: Eunice Han, "The Myth of Unions' Overprotection of Bad Teachers," Industrial Relations (2020). See Sources.
On average, union contracts pay about 10% more for similar workers. But a vote to form a union is not a raise by itself. Fewer than half of new unions reach a first contract within a year, and about 30% never reach one within three years. And in studies of close elections, the pay effect was near zero.
Blanchflower & Bryson (2024); DiNardo & Lee (2004); first-contract studies. See Sources.
Some strikes win big — recent contracts at UPS and the Big Three automakers brought large raises. Others lose badly. After Hostess workers struck in 2012, the company shut down and about 18,000 jobs were lost (why it failed is disputed). Wins and losses both happen.
UPS/Teamsters and UAW 2023 contracts; Hostess liquidation (2012); Charter/Spectrum strike (2017). See Sources.
You have the right to organize.
Your rights under federal law →This tool explains general rights for education only. It is not legal advice. For your situation, talk to a qualified attorney or the NLRB.
Pick a measure. See every field at once — including where unions show no advantage.
Pay by industry: BLS Union Members, 2025 (Table 4), median weekly earnings shown monthly (weekly × 52 ÷ 12). Raw medians, not adjusted for who does the work. 2025 is an 11-month average (October not collected).