La clausula UNION se utiliza para combinar los resultados de dos o mas consultass tipo sleect, se eleminaras los dupliocados de los resultados y se devuelven solo los registros unicos.

OSEA COMBINA LOS RESULTQADOA DE AMBAS TABLAS Y ELIMINA DUPLICADOS

USE [Northwind]
GO
SELECT
    LTRIM([EmployeeID]) AS Código
      ,[TitleOfCourtesy] + ' ' +[LastName] + ', ' +[FirstName] AS Cliente
      ,[Address]
      ,[City]
      ,[Region]
      ,[PostalCode]
      ,[Country]
      ,[HomePhone]
  FROM [dbo].[Employees]
UNION
SELECT  [CustomerID]
      ,[CompanyName]

      ,[Address]
      ,[City]
      ,[Region]
      ,[PostalCode]
      ,[Country]
      ,[Phone]
FROM [dbo].[Customers]
GO

select [Phone] from [dbo].[Customers]
union 
select [HomePhone] FROM [dbo].[Employees]

UNION ALL

junta los dos datos de las tablas pero no los elimina

Usos principales:

use pvl
go
SELECT TOP 5 pat_ben_vc as apellido,
count(*) as cantidad from (
	select pat_ben_vc 
	from  Beneficiario
	union all 
	select mat_ben_vc 
	from Beneficiario
) as SC
group by pat_ben_vc
order by 2 DESC