Employment, Income, and Benefits

Union Membership

Union membership has many advantages for workers, including higher wages and benefits (e.g., insurance, pension plans) and improved workplace conditions. Identifying and monitoring union membership trends helps provide information on construction workers, such as access to insurance and retirement plans. Check out our dashboards on Health Insurance and Retirement Plans for relevant data.

This interactive dashboard summarizes union membership trends among construction workers by industry, demographic, and occupation. The Year filter updates the charts and the bolded and underlined key findings.

Following the interactive dashboard, you will find more information on the data source, definitions, chart notes, a downloadable data file, and recommended citation. This interactive data dashboard corresponds to a chapter in the upcoming PDF version of the Construction Chart Book-7th edition, which will be published this summer. Data will be updated annually as available. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected].

About the Data

Sarah Flood, Miriam King, Renae Rodgers, Steven Ruggles, J. Robert Warren, Daniel Backman, Annie Chen, Grace Cooper, Stephanie Richards, Megan Schouweiler, and Michael Westberry. IPUMS CPS: Version 12.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2024. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V12.0.

Definitions and Chart Notes

Definitions

  • Craftworkers – All workers except those who are managerial, professional, or administrative support. Also called blue-collar or production workers.
  • Wage-and-salaryIndividuals who receive wages, salaries, commissions, tips or payment in kind from their employer.
  • Union Status – indicates for the current job if the respondents were a member of a labor union or an employee association similar to a union.
    • Non-union Member – respondent was not a member.
    • Union Member – respondent was a member.

Chart Notes

  • Charts show data for wage-and-salary workers.
Recommended Citation and Data File

Recommended Citation

CPWR–The Center for Construction Research and Training. [2025]. Union Membership [dashboard].

Data File
The Data File includes information for union membership trends presented.