New Report Finds Maine Union Members Earn $6 Per Hour More Than Non-Union Counterparts

A new report finds that union members in Maine earn $6 more than their non-union counterparts doing similar work.  "The State of the Unions: Organized Labor in Maine, 2022-2024,” authored by researchers Joseph van der Naald and former Scontras Center teaching fellow Kevin Van Meter, analyzes both historical and contemporary union membership patterns in Maine, their implications for the conditions of workers and their wages, as well as recent union organizing efforts in the state.”

Some of the key findings in the report include:

• Maine union members make $6.00 an hour more than non-members on average.

• The union wage premium is even higher for women workers who earn $6.80 more than their non-union counterparts on average.

• Union membership significantly increases wages for non-college educated workers, who earn $7.03 an hour more than their non-union counterparts on average.

• Maine’s public-sector unionization rate is 41.1%, considerably higher than the 2022-2024 national average of 33.6%.

• The industries with the highest rates of unionization are public administration, transportation and utilities, and educational services.

• Some of Maine’s least-unionized industries, health services, wholesale and retail trade, educational services, and leisure and hospitality, employ more than half of all workers in the state.

Organizing Surge

•  Amidst the union upsurge of the past several years, Maine experienced a modest increase in new organizing in the private sector.

• Eight strikes took place in Maine between 2022 and 2024. These included strikes in the service industry, as well as among paper workers and nurses.

Read the full report here!

The new report comes as new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows union representation grew by 463,000 in 2025, bringing the total number of workers represented by union contracts to 16.5 million.  11.2 percent of all wage and salary workers in the United States are now covered under union contracts, up from 2024 and the highest in 16 years.