The gap between the hourly earnings of union members and non-union members — the union premium — widened in 2014, official figures show.
The trade union wage premium, defined as the percentage difference in average gross hourly earnings of union members compared with non-members, is 21.6% in the public sector and 8.1% in the private sector. This is an increase of 1.7 and 0.9 percentage points respectively when compared with 2013.
For all employees, the premium widened slightly from 16.7% to 16.7% in favour of union members.
The union premium is one of the many areas of union membership covered in Trade union membership 2014, published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/trade-union-statistics-2014