Union Plumber Pay 2026:
UA Local-by-Local Scales
Updated 18 May 2026 | Sources: Publicly published UA Local CBA wage sheets | United Association national
UA Local wage scales are public documents. Each Local negotiates its own CBA with the signatory contractor association in its market, publishes the journeyman rate, apprentice ladder, and benefits package, and renews on a 3 to 5 year cycle. The headline numbers below are 2026 in-force rates from the top 10 plumbers Locals by total package value.
Highest Package (SF Local 38)
$138/hr
Lowest in Top 10
$72/hr
Median Top 10 Wage
$56/hr
Median Top 10 Benefits
$36/hr
Section 01
Top 10 Plumbers Locals: 2026 Journeyman Scale
Ranked by total package value (base wage plus employer-paid benefits). All figures are in-force as of the 2026 CBA cycle; some Locals are mid-CBA cycle and rates apply for the remaining cycle term.
| UA Local | Coverage | Journeyman Wage | Total Package | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA Local 1 (NYC) | NYC five boroughs + Long Island | $62 to $74/hr | $108 to $128/hr | Highest base wage of any plumbers Local; NYC commercial market |
| UA Local 130 (Chicago) | Chicago + suburbs | $58 to $68/hr | $98 to $114/hr | Largest plumbers Local by membership; very strong commercial penetration |
| UA Local 38 (San Francisco) | SF + San Mateo + Marin | $72 to $84/hr | $118 to $138/hr | Highest hourly all-in package; Bay Area construction market |
| UA Local 12 (Boston) | Greater Boston + parts of Eastern MA | $54 to $66/hr | $92 to $110/hr | Strong Boston commercial + biotech / hospital market |
| UA Local 24 (NJ - Newark) | Essex + Hudson + Bergen counties NJ | $56 to $66/hr | $92 to $112/hr | Effectively pays NYC-suburb premium; covers NJ side of NYC metro |
| UA Local 4 (Detroit) | Detroit metro + SE Michigan | $44 to $54/hr | $76 to $92/hr | Strong auto-industrial work; Big 3 OEM mechanical |
| UA Local 32 (Seattle) | Seattle + Tacoma + Western WA | $54 to $66/hr | $92 to $108/hr | Tech-campus + healthcare commercial; aggressive market |
| UA Local 393 (San Jose) | South Bay + Silicon Valley | $68 to $80/hr | $114 to $132/hr | Silicon Valley commercial; second-highest Bay Area rate |
| UA Local 75 (Milwaukee) | Milwaukee + SE Wisconsin | $42 to $52/hr | $72 to $88/hr | Strong Midwest industrial market; brewing + food processing legacy |
| UA Local 5 (Washington DC) | DC + Northern VA + parts of MD | $48 to $60/hr | $82 to $100/hr | Federal-prevailing-wage projects; data centre alley work |
Total package figure includes base wage plus employer-paid H&W, pension, annuity, training, vacation, and miscellaneous funds. Does not include overtime multipliers, premium pay, or per-diem.
Section 02
How to Read a UA Wage Sheet
The UA Local wage sheet is a one or two page document that summarizes the in-force Collective Bargaining Agreement terms. It is the source-of-truth for what a union plumber gets paid in that Local's jurisdiction. The format varies between Locals but the components are standard.
| Component | Typical Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Base Hourly Wage | $42 to $84/hr depending on Local | Reported on the public wage sheet as the journeyman scale |
| Health and Welfare (H&W) | $10 to $18/hr employer-paid | Pays family medical, dental, vision; equivalent to $20K to $36K of annual benefit |
| Defined Benefit Pension | $8 to $14/hr employer-paid | Funds DB pension; pension portability between UA Locals through reciprocity agreements |
| Annuity (Defined Contribution) | $4 to $10/hr employer-paid | Individual annuity account; supplements DB pension; vests immediately |
| Training (JATC) | $1 to $2/hr employer-paid | Funds the apprenticeship and journeyman upgrade training |
| Vacation / Holiday Reserve | $3 to $5/hr employer-paid | Bank fund the member draws from; alternative to PTO accrual |
The most commonly misunderstood line is health and welfare. Non-union workers often compare their base hourly wage to the union base hourly wage and conclude the union premium is modest. The full comparison requires adding the employer-paid H&W on the union side (typically $10 to $18 per hour) to the union base wage. A non-union worker paying their own family health-insurance premium at $1,800 to $2,400 per month is effectively losing $10 to $15 per hour from their take-home pay to cover what a union worker gets through the H&W fund without employee contribution. The same dynamic applies, on a smaller per-hour basis, to the pension and annuity contributions.
Section 03
Geography: Where the Top Locals Cluster
UA Local pay tracks two structural geographies: dense commercial-construction markets (NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, DC, Seattle, San Jose) where the commercial union signatory contractor base is strong, and major industrial markets (Detroit auto, Milwaukee industrial, Pittsburgh steel and gas, Gulf Coast refineries) where the industrial pipefitter market sustains union density.
The dense commercial-market Locals pay the highest base wages because the project mix is large commercial buildings (office towers, hospitals, universities, hotels, multi-family residential at scale) where the labour cost premium is tolerable inside total project economics. NYC Local 1 and Bay Area Locals 38 and 393 lead this group with base wages above $60 per hour and total packages above $115 per hour.
The industrial Locals pay somewhat lower base wages on commercial work but anchor their overall income through industrial pipefitter and steamfitter work where overtime is high. A Detroit Local 4 journeyman on a Big 3 auto-plant installation routinely works 50 to 60 hours per week during build-out periods; the gross annual income looks comparable to or higher than the higher-base-wage commercial Locals once overtime stacks. Milwaukee Local 75 and Pittsburgh Local 27 follow similar patterns.
Outside the top 10 are Locals in second-tier metros (Denver Local 3, Minneapolis Local 15, Portland Local 290) that pay strong but slightly lower packages, plus a long tail of smaller Locals in mid-size cities (Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cincinnati) where total packages run $65 to $85 per hour. The full Local-by-Local picture is available through the UA Find a Local directory.
Section 04
Travel and Pension Portability
One of the underappreciated features of the UA Local system is that pension and health-and-welfare contributions are portable between Locals through reciprocity agreements. A journeyman who starts in Local 4 Detroit, works a few years out of Local 130 Chicago on a major project, then settles into Local 32 Seattle accumulates pension credits in the same UA national pension fund the entire time. Health-and-welfare contributions follow the worker through a national reciprocity bank that ensures continuous coverage.
The travel-card mechanism enables this portability. A Local-card holder who wants to work out of another Local's jurisdiction submits the card to the receiving Local's hiring hall. If the receiving Local has work available beyond what its own membership can fill, the traveler is dispatched and works at the receiving Local's wage and benefit scale. The contributions to H&W and pension are recorded to the traveler's home Local through reciprocity, ensuring the worker does not lose benefits accumulation during the travel.
Travel is structural to specific UA niches. UA Local 798 (cross-country pipeline) is fundamentally a travel Local: the work is wherever the pipeline is being built. UA Local 568 (Marathon refinery turnarounds) and other industrial-outage contractors pull travelers from across the country during outage windows. Beyond these specialty Locals, individual journeymen on commercial Locals travel on major-project basis: a Local 4 Detroit journeyman taking a six-month assignment in Phoenix during a TSMC fab build-out, for example.
The portability is part of why UA careers can sustain long-arc earnings without geographic lock-in. A union plumber who started in 2005 in a depressed Detroit market and travelled to Chicago, then to Seattle during the tech-boom commercial wave, then settled into one of the Sun Belt Locals during the recent population-migration construction wave can string the highest-employment-density markets together without losing pension credits or benefits. The combination of strong CBA terms in any one market plus portability across markets is one of the structural reasons union plumber lifetime earnings exceed non-union by more than the spot-wage gap suggests.