Posts tagged Economic Policy Institute
More Cannabis Workers Push For Unionization To Break Industry Barriers
November 29, 2022 // With cannabis workers in their ranks that range from processors, budtenders, chefs, and lab workers to cultivators and delivery personnel, the UFCW International sees their "Cannabis Organizing" campaign as a multi-pronged effort to increase the power of workers' voices, break the stigma around cannabis that exists in communities of color, increase the number of minority cannabis dispensary license holders and level the equity playing field in a rapidly growing industry.
Striketober Is Back As Workers Fight To Close The Wage Gap
October 4, 2022 // Strike Activity Heats As Workers Grapple With Covid Inequities Workers have long been frustrated by a wide range of issues–from low wages to poor working conditions, but Covid brought these problems into sharp relief. Workers who interact with customers in person, from medical staff to restaurant workers, realized that while companies considered them essential, they also considered them expendable. As the immediate horrors of Covid fade into the rearview, the way workers were treated has left a permanent scar. The combination of a lack of basic benefits (like healthcare), poor working conditions, unfair labor practices and the extreme wealth disparity between business owners and workers has triggered action—which is now showing up in worker walkouts, says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Op-ed: Bringing Workers’ Sensibility to Local Government
September 26, 2022 // Electing more union members would ensure that local officials instead invest their energies in productive ways, such as building robust, worker-centered economies. Some forward-thinking local officials have used their authority to pass worker protection laws, to establish agencies for enforcing those safeguards and to create workers councils to take testimony on job-related issues, noted the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C.-based thinktank, in a recent report. At Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards, for example, a full-time equivalent staff of 34 enforces 18 worker-centered ordinances, including those requiring paid sick time, employment opportunity and protections for gig workers.
Elizabeth Warren Introduces Bill to Bolster Union Power
September 13, 2022 // Twenty-seven states have right-to-work laws on the books which prohibit unions and employers from requiring workers to pay fees to a union. In practice, this means that workers who reap the benefits of being represented by a union can still decline to support the union’s work financially. This deprives unions of the funds they need operate—weakening their power to bargain for better conditions on behalf of their members. Rep. Brad Sherman,
Booming US cannabis industry seen as fertile ground for union expansion
August 3, 2022 // Union organizing in the cannabis industry has driven a surge of union elections in retail, one of the few industries to experience unionization gains in recent years, winning 18 out of 26 union elections in 2021. The United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters both represent thousands of workers in the cannabis industry and are leading union organizing campaigns to keep up with the pace of the industry’s growth.
‘Workers are winning’: Colorado law hailed as important victory for public sector workers
June 13, 2022 // The bill, although a compromise from a previously proposed bill that would have granted the right to strike to about 250,000 public sector workers throughout Colorado, was hailed as one of the most significant expansions of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in recent years. It goes into effect next year. “All across the nation, workers are fighting tooth and nail to get a seat at the table, and they’re winning. We see it in Starbucks coffee shops. We see it in cultural institutions, and now we’re seeing it in Colorado, where county workers will have the freedom to negotiate to improve their lives and strengthen the public services they provide,” said the AFSCME president, Lee Saunders, in response to the bill’s passage. Brittany Williams, El Paso county, Colorado, Jared Polis, Collective Bargaining for Counties bill, Lee Saunders, AFL-CIO, AFSCME Local 1335,
Worker productivity saw its biggest drop since 1947 in the first quarter—but experts say the headline figures don’t tell the whole story
May 9, 2022 // American workers’ productivity dropped sharply in the first quarter of 2022, notching the largest three-month decline since 1947. Non-farm productivity, which measures worker output against hours worked, sank 7.5% from January through March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday.
Unions are on the rise. Guess why.
May 2, 2022 // For one thing, these companies aren’t exactly from your grandfather’s day when activists organized the steel, coal and auto industries. There isn’t much of that unionizing left to do in this country (excepting some foreign auto assembly plants in the South — and that has been tough going). The new surge is going after flagships of the tech and service economy.
Polis, Democratic lawmakers and local governments are all squaring off over public bargaining rights
February 20, 2022 // Today, only 15 of Colorado’s 272 municipalities have collectively bargained agreements with any part of their workforce, and almost all of those contracts are with police and firefighters. Just about a quarter of school districts have collective bargaining, too.
2021 was a year of labor action—but it didn’t translate into more unionized workers
January 20, 2022 // Despite high levels of union activity and public favorability, the number of workers in unions fell in 2021