Union membership continued to decline across the country, but union workers continue to earn substantially more than non-union workers. Jesse Russell has more:

By Jesse Russell

By the end of 2006 union membership had declined to 12 percent of the workforce. One state that saw numbers drop was Oregon where employed union workers went from 14.5 percent of the workforce in 2005 to 13.8 percent last year. Sheet metal worker
and union organizer Willy Meyers says that's bad news for all Oregon workers
because unions set higher standards for worker rights, benefits and wages.

[Meyers]: "Unions float all boats. If the majority of
the work in the area is done union, then the union wage prevails. If the
majority is done non-union, then it's an average between the union rate and
non union rate, which is almost always lower."

The national weekly median average income for a non-union service sector worker, which includes healthcare support, food prep, and janitorial services - was $404 in 2006 or $10 per hour. On the flipside, a union worker in that same sector averaged $629 per week - or more than $15 per hour. The trend of substantially higher wages for unionized workers continues through every sector. For example in the construction occupations a non-union worker averaged only $582 per week while unionized workers averaged $933 per week - nearly $10 per hour more.