Unionization efforts at Ama zon .com and recent strikes by autoworkers and movie and television actors and writers raise questions about the effects of unions on worker productivity, compensation, and job security. To answer those questions, this paper examines plant- level data from 2010 to 2017 from the Census of Manufacturers and the Annual Survey of Manufacturers. It finds that wages are higher at unionized plants, but controls for location, industry, and firm characteristics reduce the premium. Union plants, on average, pay 7.5 percent more in hourly wages to production workers and have 17.8 percent higher benefit costs. But unionized plants have lower wage growth and higher closure rates. Taking those characteristics into account, the net present value of the wage premium for unionized workers is only 3.6 percent over five years and becomes negative over 10 years.
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- United States of America
