Early in Barack Obama’s recent Netflix documentary series about American jobs, viewers meet a housekeeper at the Pierre Hotel in New York named Elba. She spends her shifts cleaning hotel rooms, and she talks about the job’s challenges, including back pain and guests’ occasional misbehavior. Elba is meant to be a symbol of difficult service-industry work in today’s economy.
But when she mentioned how much money she made, I will admit that I was surprised: Elba earns about $4,000 a month, or roughly $50,000 a year. While modest, that income still allows for something approaching a middle-class lifestyle, especially when combined with the income her husband, Francisco, makes at his job in the Pierre Hotel’s cafeteria.
“I don’t worry too much about money,” said Elba, who recently became a grandmother, “because I know I can count on my paycheck.”
Many other service workers earn far less. Full-time Starbucks baristas in New York City often earn less than $35,000 a year, while many Walmart employees make even less. Across New York City, the median household income is about $75,000 — which is less than Elba and Francisco make.
How is it that they earn a living wage while so many other Americans do not? The biggest part of the answer is that Elba belongs to a labor union.
Unions are a much smaller part of the American economy than they once were, representing only 6 percent of private-sector workers. Still, unions allow their members to earn substantially more than...
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