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American Sociological Association study Union decline accounts for much of the rise in wage inequality WASHINGTON, D.C. — Union membership in America has declined significantly since the early 1970s, and that plunge explains approxi- mately a fifth of the increase in hourly wage inequality among women and about a third among men, according to a new study in the August issue of the American Sociological Review. “Our study underscores the role of Motorcycle poker run fundraiser for Guide Dogs Aug. 27 The 5th annual Guide Dogs Dash motorcycle poker run will be held Saturday, Aug. 27. The event, spon- sored by Machinists Lodge 63, has starting times from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at Pro Caliber Motorsports, 10703 NE Fourth Plain Road,Vancouver. It finishes at Love Leathers Outpost in Ridgefield. Registration is $25 per rider and $10 per passenger. All proceeds go to Guide Dogs of America. For more information, go on line to www.iamll63.org. unions as an equalizing force in the la- bor market,” said study author Bruce Western, a professor of sociology at Harvard University. “Most researchers studying wage inequality have fo- cused on the effects of educational stratification — pay differences based on level of education — and have generally under-emphasized the im- pact of unions.” From 1973 to 2007, wage inequal- ity in the private sector increased by more than 40 percent among men, and by about 50 percent among women. In their study, Western and co-author Jake Rosenfeld, a professor of sociol- ogy at the University of Washington, examine the effects of union decline on both “between-group” inequality and “within-group” inequality. Between-group compares people from different demographics and in- dustries, while within-group looks at people from the same demographics and industries. Focusing on full-time, private sec- tor workers, Western and Rosenfeld found that de-unionization — the de- cline in the percentage of the labor force that is unionized — and educa- tional stratification each explain about 33 percent of the rise in “within- group” wage inequality among men. Among women, de-unionization ex- plains about 20 percent of the increase in wage inequality, whereas education explains more than 40 percent. Part of the reason for this gender discrepancy is that men have experi- enced a much larger decline in private sector union membership — from 34 percent in 1973 to 8 percent in 2007 — than women (who went from 16 percent to 6 percent during the same period). “For generations, unions were the core institution advocating for more equitable wage distribution,” said Rosenfeld. “Today, when unions — at least in the private sector — have largely disappeared, that means that this voice for equity has faded dramat- ically. People now have very different ideas about what’s acceptable in terms of pay distribution.” The study finds that union decline explains little of the rise in “between- group” inequality. “Unions standardize wages so that people with similar characteristics — if they’re union members — tend to have similar wages,” Western said. “So, it makes sense that de-unioniza- tion has little impact on between- group inequality, which, by definition, exists between groups of people that are different.” While the purpose of unions is to standardize wages for their members, Western and Rosenfeld find that even nonunion workers, if they’re in highly unionized industries, tend to have fairly equal wages, partly because nonunion employers will raise wages to the union level to discourage union- ization. In terms of policy implications, Western and Rosenfeld think their study could help reignite the dialogue on labor unions, which they believe has disappeared from economic de- bates in recent years. “In the early 1970s, unions were important for delivering middle class incomes to working-class families, and they enlivened politics by speak- ing out against inequality,” said West- ern. “These days, there just aren’t big institutional actors who are making the case for greater economic equality in America.” The study relies on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1973 to 2007. A monthly survey conducted by the Bureau of Census, the CPS provides data from about 60,000 U.S. households representative of the U.S. population as a whole. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, American Sociological Association, 202-527-7885, or by e- mail at pubinfo@asanet.org. IKEA workers vote to join Machinists In a 221-69 vote, workers at the IKEA plant in Danville, Va., voted July 27 to join the Machinists Union (IAM). The 318 employees assemble products for IKEA. The workers, the IAM and the global union federation Builders and Wood- workers International (BWI) launched a campaign in December to highlight what they say are labor and human rights abuses in the Danville plant. According to the workers, the issues at Ikea include dangerous working con- ditions, forced overtime, discriminatory work practices, high injury rates, dis- charge of union supporters, and harassment of union organizers. 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