How to find the pay scale in a private employer's union contract

If you're weighing a job at a unionized private company, or you want a hard benchmark before you negotiate anywhere in that industry, the union contract is often the best pay document you can get. This guide shows you where to find collective bargaining agreements for named private employers, how to read the wage schedule inside one, and how to check that the rates you find are still in force.

One quick note on scope: this guide is about private-sector employers. Contracts for government workers follow different rules and live in different places, so they aren't covered here.

Why union contracts reveal pay rates

Most private companies treat their pay scales as internal information. You might see a posted range in a job ad, but the actual rate for each job, how fast it rises and what extras apply usually stay inside HR.

A union contract is different. When a union bargains with an employer, wages are one of the core subjects, and the result is written into a signed agreement that both sides must follow. That agreement typically lists every covered job title, the hourly rate or rate range for each, the schedule of raises over the life of the contract, and the premiums for overtime, nights or holidays.

So a contract can tell you three things a job ad rarely does:

• The exact rate for a job title, not a wide range.
• The path: how pay moves from the starting rate to the top rate, and how long that takes.
• The future: raises already agreed for the rest of the contract.

The catch is that a contract only covers the workers in its bargaining unit, the group of jobs the union represents at that employer. A contract for warehouse workers says nothing about the same company's office staff.

Quick reference: where to find private-sector union pay rates

Where to find collective bargaining agreements

The OLMS contract file: what it covers

The Department of Labor has kept a file of collective bargaining agreements since 1947. According to the OLMS page describing the file, it exists under Section 211(a) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which tells the department to collect agreements for the use of employers, employees and "the general public." Responsibility moved from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to OLMS through a Secretary's Order in May 2007.

Here's what matters for you as a researcher, all from that OLMS page:

• Submissions are voluntary. OLMS posts agreements that the employer or the union sends in, on its own or together.
• Either side can block it. If the employer or the union objects, OLMS won't accept the agreement.
• Gaps are expected. OLMS itself says some materials may be out of date or unavailable for major bargaining units.
• Railroads and airlines are excluded. An earlier version of the OLMS page explains that OLMS doesn't collect contracts from those industries and that the National Mediation Board handles them.
• Older contracts sit elsewhere. Pre-1990s agreements have been provided to Cornell University, which hosts them.

Unions and employers can now submit agreements through an online eCBA portal, and the documents themselves are searched through the OLMS Online Public Disclosure Room.

Other places to look

The union's own website. Many national unions and large locals post their current contracts, and some publish plain-language summaries of new deals. Search the union's name with the employer's name and "contract" or "agreement."

Ask the union directly. If you're an employee covered by a contract, federal law is on your side. The OLMS FAQ explains that under section 104 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, a local union must give a copy of any agreement it negotiated to any member, and to any employee whose rights are directly affected by it, when they ask. If a local refuses, you can contact the OLMS field office for that union's area.

Securities filings. Public companies sometimes attach agreements to their filings. The SEC's EDGAR full-text search lets you search filings and their exhibits by company name and keyword, so try the company's name plus "collective bargaining agreement." Treat a hit as a bonus, not something to count on.

Searching for an employer's contract, step by step

1. Pin down the legal employer name. Contracts are filed under the employer's legal name, which can differ from the brand. Staffing and outsourcing firms are a common example: the contract may be with the vendor, not the well-known company where the work happens.
2. Find the union name. Job ads at union shops, news coverage of a strike or ratification vote, and the employer's own careers or press pages often name the union and local number.
3. Search OLMS by employer, then by union. Start from the OLMS contract page and open the Online Public Disclosure Room search. If the employer search comes up empty, search the union, since a local may have filed contracts with several employers.
4. Check the location and unit. Large employers can have many contracts, split by site, state or job group. Make sure the one you open covers the location and jobs you care about.
5. Open the contract and jump to three places: the duration article (usually near the front or back), the recognition clause (who is covered), and the wage article or appendix.
6. Look for the newest version. If you find an expired contract, search again for a successor, check the union's site, and look for news of a new agreement.

Reading the wage schedule: classifications, steps and progression

Wage schedules vary a lot, but most use the same building blocks.

• Classification: the job title as the contract defines it. Your pay depends on which classification you're placed in, so read the job descriptions if the contract has them.
• Starting rate (or hiring rate): what a new hire in that classification earns.
• Steps or progression: a ladder of rates tied to time in the job. You move up a step after a set number of months or hours worked.
• Top rate: the highest step, sometimes called the journey or full rate.
• General wage increase: an across-the-board raise, usually on set dates, applied to every rate in the table.
• Longevity pay: extra pay after long service, on top of the step rates.

Worked example: a contract posted in the OLMS file

Here's a real private-sector agreement that sits in the OLMS disclosure system: the contract between Accenture Flex LLC and the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009. The union's page for the unit describes it as a two-year contract ratified in December 2024, running from Jan 1, 2025 to Jan 1, 2027, and links to the OLMS copy. The unit is small and specific: writers, designers, QA and launch staff working on Google's help content. That's typical. One company can have a contract for one team and none for everyone else.

When you open it, the wage article shows how a short, modern contract handles pay:

• Starting rates by title. A table lists an hourly starting wage for each covered job, from QA roles up to lead and trainer roles.
• Scheduled raises. Instead of steps, every covered employee gets a fixed percentage raise in each contract year, timed to their anniversary date.
• Conditions on raises. Missing required compliance training or filing time reports late can shrink the raise. That's the kind of detail you'll only find in the text.
• One-off money. A ratification bonus was offered if the union approved the deal before the contract started.
• Premiums and time off. Separate articles set overtime and holiday pay at time and a half, and fold in the company's paid time off policy.

The union's page also lists non-wage terms it won, including six weeks of severance pay and guaranteed remote work. That's a reminder that a contract's value isn't only in the wage table.

How to turn a rate into a yearly figure: multiply the hourly rate by the hours you expect to work in a year. A full-time schedule of 40 hours for 52 weeks is 2,080 hours, so a $21 hourly rate (the UPS part-time starting rate in the next example) would work out to $43,680 a year before overtime if it were paid on a full-time schedule. Part-time roles will come in lower, so always use your actual expected hours.

Notice what the Accenture Flex contract doesn't do: there's no step ladder. Pay grows through the annual percentage raise. Other contracts, especially in manufacturing, construction and logistics, use multi-step progressions where you climb from a hiring rate to a top rate over a set period.

Worked example: a published summary of a large contract

Big contracts often get a public summary before the vote. In July 2023, the Teamsters published highlights of their tentative 2023-2028 National Master Agreement with UPS. According to that summary:

• New part-time hires would start at $21 an hour and advance to $23.
• Existing full- and part-time workers would get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, with increases totaling $7.50 per hour over the contract.
• Full-time workers' average top rate would reach $49 per hour.
• Part-timers could get longevity increases of up to $1.50 per hour on top of the raises.

UPS later announced that employees had ratified the five-year agreement, which it said covers more than 300,000 full- and part-time U.S. employees, along with local supplemental agreements. That structure is worth knowing: a national contract can set the main terms while local supplements add rules for a region. Always check both, and remember that a summary is not the contract. The signed text governs.

Premiums, differentials and scheduled increases

The base rate in the wage table is only the starting point. Before you compare a union job with a nonunion offer, look for these in the contract:

Watch for benefits written "by reference" to company policy, as in the Accenture Flex contract. That means the contract points to an existing company policy instead of spelling out the terms, and the employer may be able to change that policy under the conditions the contract sets.

What contracts usually won't show you: how much overtime is actually available, what a typical worker's total earnings are, or the cash value of benefits. Treat those as questions to ask the union steward or the hiring manager.

How union and nonunion pay compare in BLS data

For the big picture, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes an annual Union Members release. The latest, released February 18, 2026, covers 2025. Among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median weekly earnings of $1,404 in 2025, compared with $1,174 for nonunion workers. Put another way, nonunion earnings were 84% of union earnings.

A quick word on medians: the median is the middle value. Half of workers earned more and half earned less, so a few very high earners don't skew it.

For private employers specifically, the gap varies a lot by industry. Here are selected 2025 figures from BLS Table 4, median weekly earnings for full-time workers:

Three cautions before you quote these numbers:

• They aren't apples to apples. BLS says the differences also reflect who works where: occupation, industry, age, firm size and region all differ between union and nonunion workers.
• 2025 data has a gap. The October 2025 survey wasn't collected because of the federal government shutdown, so 2025 annual figures are 11-month averages and aren't strictly comparable with other years.
• Union jobs are a small slice. The private-sector union membership rate was 5.9% in 2025, with 7.4 million private-sector members.

Also note that "covered by a contract" is wider than "union member." BLS counts 16.5 million workers represented by a union in 2025, including 1.8 million who weren't members but whose jobs fell under a contract.

Limits: expired contracts and incomplete coverage

Check the effective dates first. Every contract has a duration clause. The Accenture Flex agreement, for instance, runs to Jan 1, 2027. As of late October 2026, that means a successor deal could be under negotiation, and the rates in the posted document may soon be replaced. Many contracts also include a rollover clause that keeps them in force for another period if neither side gives notice, so read that clause too.

Here's a quick checklist for any contract you find:

• What are the start and end dates on the cover page or duration article?
• Is the final year's wage table already in effect, or still scheduled?
• Has a newer agreement been ratified since this one was posted?
• Does the contract cover your location and job title?
• Are there side letters or memorandums that change the wage table?

Expect gaps. Because submissions to OLMS are voluntary and either side can object, a missing contract tells you nothing about whether one exists. And an expired contract may still be useful: rates in a new deal are usually built on the old table, so the old one gives you a floor for questions.

Mind the industry exclusions. For airline and railroad jobs, OLMS won't have the contract. Start with the union's website or the National Mediation Board.

Using a contract in a pay conversation

How you use the numbers depends on which side of the contract you're on.

If the job is covered by the contract, the wage table usually sets your rate, so there's less room for one-on-one bargaining. Your leverage is in placement. Ask which classification you'll be hired into and whether the contract allows credit for prior experience.

"I see the contract has a progression for this classification. Does it allow starting above the first step for prior experience? I have four years doing this work."

If you're nonunion at the same company or a competitor, the contract is a benchmark. Use the rate for the closest classification, adjusted for location and duties.

"The posted union contract for similar work at a competitor starts at a higher hourly rate than this offer and adds a scheduled raise each year. Can we close some of that gap in base pay?"

Stay honest about the comparison. If the duties, location or hours differ, say so, and use the contract as one data point next to job postings and official wage data. You'll find more scripts on our negotiation page and wider data on our pay trends page.

What to do next

• Write down the legal employer name and the union and local number before you search.
• Search the OLMS contract file by employer, then by union.
• Open the contract's duration clause before you trust any rate in it.
• Note the starting rate, top rate, time to top rate and scheduled raises for your classification.
• If you're covered and can't get the contract, ask your local in writing, and contact the OLMS field office if it refuses.
• Compare your findings with other employers on our company pay page.