American factories are hiring again, but union members are being left out in the cold, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
Although factories have added about 500,000 new workers since the end of 2009, nearly all of the job gains have been non-union, the newspaper said.
James Sherk, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said one reason is that unionized manufacturers are not viewed as attractive investments.
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“Unionized firms are not getting the investment,” he said. “Where investors see the opportunity is non-unionized firms.”
Non-union factory jobs pay about 7 percent less than do similar unionized factory jobs, which makes non-unionized firms more competitive globally and is one of the factors that have allowed U.S. manufacturers to start hiring again, according to The Post.
But lower pay means middle-class consumers have less money to spend to stimulate the economy, according to unions.
“The big problem is that when you look at the wage gap we used to see between manufacturing and non-manufacturing, that’s getting smaller,” William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, told The Post.
Factory workers who are paid less also spend less, which reduces demand for goods and services, Spriggs contends. “That’s what we’ve been doing in the United States for the last 30 years. We’ve been cannibalizing our own consumer base.”
There were 12.5 million American non-union factory workers in 2012, the same as in 1977. But there 1.5 million union factory members in 2012 — 6 million fewer than in 1977, The Post noted.
A majority of union jobs are now government jobs, but even those are on the decline, The Post said. The public sector shed 230,000 union jobs in 2012 alone.
The newspaper estimated many recent manufacturing job gains have been among smaller firms, which are less likely to be unionized.
About 50,000 of the U.S. factory jobs added since 2009 — or about 10 percent of the total — were created by companies bringing back manufacturing from overseas, BBC News reported.
Factors leading to U.S. manufacturing job growth include higher labor costs abroad, cheaper energy, workers willing to work for less and increased automated technology, the BBC concluded.
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