As you can see in this graph, unions are a great way to reduce the persistent gender pay gap women face, a gap that affects women across industries, education levels, and races and ethnicities—hitting women of color the hardest. The good news is that if you have a stereotype of a union member as a white guy in a hard hat, you need to adjust it—a lot of union members these days are women and people of color, as the Economic Policy Institute highlights:
But as of 2016, roughly 10.6 million of the 16.3 million workers covered by a union contract are women and/or people of color.5
- About two-thirds (65.4 percent) of workers age 18 to 64 and covered by a union contract are women and/or people of color.
- Almost half (46.3 percent) are women.
- More than a third (35.8 percent) are black, Hispanic, Asian, or other nonwhite workers.
The bad news, of course, comes in that first line. Just 16.3 million American workers are covered by a union contract. For workers to prosper and for women to move toward equality, we need to get that number up. But, of course, the entire Republican Party and a host of giant corporations are doing everything they can to prevent that and drive the number down still more. Which is why it’s so important to redouble the fight.