Labor & Employment Law

Paychecks Higher for Asian Pacific Women in Unions

By James Parks

Organizers like Maria Somma, health care organizing coordinator for the United Steelworkers (USW) and a board member of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), have helped thousands of Asian Pacific American women join a union.

According to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), being a member of a union adds about $2 an hour to an Asian Pacific American woman?s paycheck compared with her nonunion counterpart.

That jibes with a previous CEPR study, which shows immigrant workers who belong to unions have a large wage and benefit advantage over their nonunion counterparts. (Click here to read CEPR’s previous report, ?Unions and Upward Mobility for Immigrant Workers.?

One of eight Asian Pacific American women?12.8 percent?are union members or are represented by a union at their workplace.

Based on the latest report, the average Asian Pacific American woman union member also is:

• Better educated?59.6 percent have a college degree?a higher rate  than  for Asian Pacific American male union members and the union membership overall.
• An immigrant (more than two-thirds) and about half (46.6 percent) work in the public sector.
• Living and working in a Pacific state.

Read the CEPR study here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 12, 2010 (boomark / email).