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Study: Popularity of Joining Unions Surges
After holding steady for decades, the percentage of American workers in all jobs who would say yes to join a union jumped sharply this past year, by 50%, says a new, independent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The evidence is clear: The popularity of the labor movement is surging as more people want to join unions than ever before. Every worker must have the freedom to negotiate in a union over pay, benefits and working conditions.
The national narrative that the economy is doing OK, while working people struggle and billionaires bask in their latest round of massive tax cuts, is all wrong.
The truth is more working people want collective power. From 1977 to 1995, the percentage of all workers who would say yes to a union drive stayed flat, at about 32% of nonunion workers. Today, that number is 48%, a remarkable 50% increase.
This independent study from MIT confirms a broad trend we’ve seen in recent months as teachers have marched and rallied en masse for better school funding and higher pay, as tens of thousands of workers have voted to join unions and as the...
Freedom to Join: What Working People Are Doing This Week
AFL-CIO
Welcome to our regular feature, a look at what the various AFL-CIO unions and other working family organizations are doing across the country and beyond. The labor movement is big and active—here's a look at the broad range of activities we're engaged in this week.
Actors' Equity:
Did you know that @TheActorsFund provide free and confidential assistance nationally to everyone who works in performing arts and entertainment—including actors, dancers, musicians, stagehands, playwrights and many more? Find out today if you qualify -https://t.co/OuVQjharjo
— Actors' Equity (@ActorsEquity) June 20, 2018
AFGE:
Congratulations John! Thank you for your years of dedicated service to both the EPA and AFGE! https://t.co/N3sI4HgY21
— AFGE (@AFGENational) June 19, 2018
AFSCME:
93% of our members at AFSCME Local 2410 (Finkelstein Memorial Library) voted to ratify our new contract! Congratulations to our outstanding negotiating team for winning a fair contract...
Killing Public Transit: The Working People Weekly List
Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s this week’s Working People Weekly List.
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country: "In cities and counties across the country—including Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix, Ariz.; southeast Michigan; central Utah; and here in Tennessee—the Koch brothers are fueling a fight against public transit, an offshoot of their longstanding national crusade for lower taxes and smaller government."
Trumka Gets World Peace Prize for Labor Leadership: "Richard L. Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, was presented Tuesday with the inaugural 'World Peace Prize for Labor Leadership.' The event took place at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO, in Washington, D.C., in the George Meany Conference Room. The award was presented before a capacity audience by Fr. Sean Mc Manus and Ms. Barbara Flaherty. He is the President of the Washington, D.C.- based Irish National Caucus, and the Chief Judge of the World Peace Prize. Ms. Flaherty is the Executive V.P. of...
Economists Have the Answer to Inequality: Working People Standing Together
At its core, income inequality is simply about a lack of power among the masses and an abundance of it for a few at the top. Its real-world effects are wage stagnation, less access to health care and secure retirements, and higher poverty. Throughout much of the 20th century, there was a powerful mechanism to keep inequality in check: unions.
When a large swath of the workforce had the ability to negotiate with employers over wages, benefits and working conditions, a balance of power existed. By standing together in a union, working people got a fair share of the economic gains they helped create. It extended beyond workplaces that were joined together in union by raising standards across the board, leading to an economic boost for all workers. But as unions declined, worker bargaining power dipped, ushering in the exploding inequality that we’re all feeling in one way or another today.
So, what do we do? A growing number of economists are looking to our past for the answer: strong unions.
Stony Brook University professor Noah Smith in Bloomberg:
...Pride Month Profiles: Mara Keisling
Wikimedia Commons
Throughout Pride Month, the AFL-CIO will be taking a look at some of the pioneers whose work sits at the intersection of the labor movement and the movement for LGBTQ equality. Our next profile is Mara Keisling.
Mara Keisling is the founder and, since 2003, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, the nation’s leading social justice advocacy organization advocating for transgender people.
Keisling grew up in Harrisburg, Pa., as one of seven siblings whose father was chief of staff to the governor. After studying at Penn State and Harvard, Keisling began a career in social marketing and opinion research. In 1999, Keisling began transitioning from Mark to Mara. Experiencing and witnessing discrimination turned Keisling into an activist, eventually leading to her becoming co-chair of the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition and a steering committee member of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition.
Recognizing the need for a more coordinated voice for transgender people in Washington, D.C., Keisling founded the NCTE in 2003 and...
What You Need to Know About Washington, D.C.'s Initiative 77 and the Minimum Wage
ROC United
On Tuesday, Washington, D.C., voters will have an opportunity to vote on Initiative 77, a ballot measure supported by a wide array of progressive and labor organizations that would eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers and give many working families a much-needed raise.
Initiative 77 would increase the tipped minimum wage to match the full wage: If it passes, the initiative would phase out the tipped minimum wage, leaving a flat $15 per hour minimum wage for D.C. workers. This would be phased in between now and 2025, giving restaurant and bar owners more than enough time to adjust to the change.
Tipped workers aren't limited to restaurants and bars: Many other workers get tips, too, including manicurists/pedicurists, hairdressers, shampooers, valets, taxi and rideshare drivers, massage therapists, baggage porters and others. Very few of them get anywhere near the 20% standard you see in high-end restaurants and bars.
The current law is changing, but it will still leave tipped workers behind: The current...
Stand with Pride: The Working People Weekly List
AFL-CIO
Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s this week’s Working People Weekly List.
Pride Month Profiles: Miriam Frank: "Throughout Pride Month, the AFL-CIO will be taking a look at some of the pioneers whose work sits at the intersection of the labor movement and the movement for LGBTQ equality. Our next profile is Miriam Frank."
Vote to Pay LGBT Servers a Secure, Living Wage: "The Washington, D.C., restaurant scene has reached soaring heights over the past few years. That prosperity—and the dining experiences we’ve grown accustomed to—has been built by working people putting in exhausting hours on the restaurant floor and behind the bar."
Pride Month Profiles: Tom Barbera: "Throughout Pride Month, the AFL-CIO will be taking a look at some of the pioneers whose work sits at the intersection of the labor movement and the movement for LGBTQ equality. Our first profile is Tom Barbera."
Union Veterans and Labor Volunteers Team Up with Community to Restore Interior...
AFL-CIO and ETUC Support Fair Trade Practices
AFL-CIO and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) issued a joint statement today on trade and multilateralism:
The working people of the United States and Europe have been harmed by unfair trade practices, including China’s deliberate overproduction of steel and aluminum, intellectual property theft, forced transfer of production, and violation of basic labor rights.
The working people of the United States and Europe have supported the growth of multilateral global governance since the end of the Second World War, and have continued to support that structure even as it has been increasingly captured by the interests of global corporations and the failed ideology of neoliberalism. A global economy requires multilateral institutions; the alternative is a war of all against all. We support the reform of the multilateral system so that it is more democratic, more open and takes into consideration labor-social-environmental rights, but we oppose efforts to destroy it. The refusal of the Trump Administration to engage productively in established multilateral processes at the OECD and...
Pride Month Profiles: Miriam Frank
NYU Bookstore
Throughout Pride Month, the AFL-CIO will be taking a look at some of the pioneers whose work sits at the intersection of the labor movement and the movement for LGBTQ equality. Our next profile is Miriam Frank.
Miriam Frank began her career as a professor in Detroit who launched women's studies at the community college level in the 1970s. She worked with the National Endowment for the Humanities to bring discussions and cultural events to union halls and community centers. She moved to New York to teach at New York University in the 1980s.
In 1995, she began work on Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America (2014), in which she collected oral histories from LGBTQ union activists, many of whom spoke to her at great risk to their personal safety and professional life. A decade later, the work was published and the voices of the activists she captured gave human shape to the intersection between the rights of working people and the rights of the LGBTQ community.
In 2015, she was interviewed by Katherine Turk. Frank spoke about the need for her research...
Union Veterans & Labor Volunteers Team Up With Community to Restore Interior of American Legion
Milwaukee Area Labor Council
Nearly 100 union volunteers spent their Saturday painting the interior of an American Legion Post. The effort, led by the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, Union Veterans Committee and the Community Service Liaison, began after legionnaire Jim Heimann noticed his home post of more than two decades was beginning to look a little dingy. Heimann is a Vietnam Veteran who describes the Legion as a "place to be with other veterans who have gone through what you’ve gone through." Union Veterans couldn’t agree more with Hiemann, a gathering place for veterans is essential to the men and women who have served our country to maintain camaraderie.
More than a dozen union organizations teamed up with members of the Legion, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter and an area business to complete the job. "It looks fantastic, it’s like a brand new post," Heimann said after seeing the newly painted interior for the first time. "A Veterans Organization [such as the American Legion] is like a brotherhood, just as...
