Have higher wages in the unionized construction industry led to unions pricing themselves out of some employment markets?

That's a widely held belief in many areas of the country. Construction unions cemented a reputation in the 1960s and 1970s for demanding excessive pay, and that stigma hasn't completely gone away.

But two researchers, one from Michigan State University, one from Rutgers, maintain that the relatively high wage differences between union and nonunion construction workers make no difference in the unionization rates for a given area.

According to the Construction Labor Report, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations professor Paula Voos and MSU professor Dale Belman studied construction wages in three periods, 1975-79, 1988-1990 and the year 2000 to see if it was true that in states with a high union-nonunion wage differential, there was a lower rate of unionization in 1990 or 2000.

"Mostly unions held on to their membership. In the places they were strong they remained strong," Voos said. In the places they were weak, they remained weak.

For example, nonunion laborers in the South-Central region of the U.S. earned an average wage-fringe salary of $11.65 per hour in 2001. The lousy wages in that region reflect the general weakness of unions in the region, because there isn't much incentive to unionize: the average union laborers in the same area earned $13.87, according to PAS, Inc.

The researchers, who appeared on a panel before the Industrial Relations Research Association last month in Atlanta, said unions were better able to hold on to their membership in states where a prevailing wage law exists. They also found that in states with a high percentage of residential construction, unions tend to lose more members.