Union Density and the Wages of Non-union Immigrant Workers in the United States

• In Event: Race/Ethnicity/Immigration and Stratification

Abstract

American labor unions have transformed from protecting native-born White workers' interests through anti-immigrant stances to officially adopting pro-immigrant membership policies in recent decades. This study estimates the effect of state union density in the private sectors on the wages of non-union immigrant workers following this policy change. Using data from the 1994 to 2024 Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group, the shift-share instrumental variable (SSIV) approach is applied with state and year two-way fixed effects. The results show that an increase in union density is associated with substantial increases in wages for non-union immigrant workers. The estimated effect size is about four times larger in the SSIV estimates than in the naive OLS estimates. A one percentage point increase in state union density is associated with approximately a 0.9 percent increase in wages for immigrant men and 0.7 percent for immigrant women. Compared to natives, however, the effect is smaller for immigrants. These patterns suggest that non-union immigrant workers have been less negatively affected by the decline in union density in recent decades, a dynamic that has contributed to a narrowing of the relative wage gap between native-born and immigrant workers. These findings underscore the complex relationship between organized labor and immigrant workers in contemporary America.

Authors

• ChangHwan Kim, University of Kansas

• Yurong Zhang, University of Kansas