Your Union Card Is the Best Pay-Equity Tool in America. For Now.
Want to close the gender wage gap faster than any legislation currently on the books? Join a union. Union women earn 23% more per hour than their non-union counterparts — roughly $12,000 more per year on average. For Latinas, who face the steepest pay gap in the country, the union premium is even sharper: $1,035 per week versus $813 per week in comparable non-union jobs — about $11,500 more annually, enough to move a family from working poor to working middle class.
Union contracts close the gender gap too: unionized workers show a 90-cents-per-dollar pay ratio compared to 82 cents without union coverage. Eight cents doesn't sound like much until you multiply it over a 40-year career and two Social Security calculations. Then it's a retirement.
Where the Equal Pay Act requires costly, reactive litigation after discrimination occurs, a union contract enforces equality proactively — through the pay scale itself.
Here's the problem: the legal machinery that makes unions possible is under coordinated constitutional attack. SpaceX, Amazon, and Energy Transfer have challenged the National Labor Relations Board's constitutionality in federal court. In 2025, the Fifth Circuit found the NLRB's structure "likely unconstitutional." A Supreme Court ruling is expected in the 2025–2026 term. If the Court agrees, the federal agency that oversees union elections could be effectively eliminated — with no constitutional requirement to replace it.
Every gain union women have made — the pay premium, the paid family leave, the healthcare coverage — rests on statutes and contracts, not on the Constitution. Statutes can be repealed by a simple majority vote. The ERA cannot. That's exactly why the labor movement and the ERA movement are fighting the same battle: one provides the floor, the other provides the army to defend it.
Women, The Economy and The ERA: Part 3 of 4
The Pay Gap Is Getting Worse. Here's the Math — and the Fix.
You're Penalized for Having a Baby. The Constitution Allows It.
Your Union Card Is the Best Pay-Equity Tool in America. For Now.
Old Age Is Expensive. For Women, It's a Crisis the Constitution Permits.
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The ERA puts a constitutional floor under every gain women have made at work. Sign at Sign4ERA.org.