Posts tagged Labor Market
‘It feels like it’s strike summer’: US unions flex muscles across industries
July 31, 2023 // “In the wake of the Patco strike, companies saw strikes as opportunities to weaken unions or even break them. That’s not the case today. Today there’s no fear that calling a strike will result in disaster,” said Lichtenstein. “Today there’s a sense that unions are on the offensive,” Lichtenstein continued. “Take the actors. They say they don’t want just a good contract. They want a transformative contract.”
Democrats want to make the minimum wage $17 an hour and give nearly 28 million workers a raise
July 27, 2023 // Sen. Bernie Sanders is once again pushing for a higher minimum wage. Sanders, alongside 29 senators and nearly 150 House representatives, introduced new legislation to bring up the federal minimum rate for the first time since 2009.
Student Activists Are Turning Their Attention to the Labor Movement
June 22, 2023 // Last year, the Young Democratic Socialists of America’s Red Hot Summer program trained hundreds of young people to organize their workplaces and helped launch union drives representing thousands. This year’s program hopes to be even bigger, writes YDSA’s cochair. Student workers across the country are engaged in an unprecedented wave of labor organization. Spurred on by the support of organizations like the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), of which I am cochair, undergraduate student workers have launched union drives on nearly thirty public and private campuses in the United States. These workers are fighting for increased pay, improvements to scheduling and hours, sick pay, and better health care. They are also fighting for issues that go beyond bread and butter, like removing Israeli products from dining halls.
For ILWU, West Coast port deal to be union-ratified, here’s what has to happen next
June 16, 2023 // West Coast port management and the labor union representing port workers reached a tentative deal late on Wednesday after the intervention of California labor market pro and Biden acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in the negotiations in San Francisco, but it could be months before the full union votes to approve the deal. The tentative agreement was a welcome development after weeks of escalating tensions between workers and port management, resulting in delays in vessel servicing, congestion at ports, in containers and out to trucking, as well as some port shutdowns. But the proposed labor deal is a far way from being fully approved, according to the International Longshore & Warehouse Union. While the union statement on the deal was positive, it laid out a process that still has several steps to go before the deal moves ahead.
Commentary: It’s Time to Retire the Labor Law
June 14, 2023 // Under a neutral public policy, an employer would be able to make a contribution to a pension plan or give access to a health plan to an independent contractor just as easily as to an employee. Finally, we need to treat labor contracts the same way we treat all commercial contracts, unless there is some compelling reason not to. We don’t tell people selling their house or a used car that they cannot sell below a minimum price. We don’t tell people selling their home that if doing so takes more than 40 hours a week, the sales price has to be 50 percent higher. People selling their labor services should enjoy just as much freedom of contract as they have in the sale of any other good or service.
It’s a Gloomy Outlook for Jobs Under Biden. Here’s the Formula to Change That.
May 19, 2023 // For the sake of personal and societal happiness, for the sake of the financial well-being of American families, for the sake of solving America’s dire fiscal situation, and for the sake of preserving the foundation of American society, policymakers need to recognize the value and rewards of work. By protecting individuals’ rights to pursue the type of work and compensation that is best for them, expanding alternative education and job-training opportunities, and not forcing workers into unions, policymakers can expand opportunities for people to achieve meaningful and rewarding work. Work truly affects every aspect of American life. Our economy, our personal financial and physical well-being, our nation’s fiscal sustainability, and even our national security depend on it.
Small businesses concerned about labor market, new taxes
April 10, 2023 // The concern from small business owners comes as new federal hiring data released Friday showed that hiring has slowed. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the data, which showed employers added 236,000 jobs in March, keeping unemployment at about 3.5%. “The labor force participation rate, at 62.6%, continued to trend up in March,” BLS said. “The employment-population ratio edged up over the month to 60.4%. These measures remain below their pre-pandemic February 2020 levels (63.3& and 61.1%, respectively).”
As Membership Rate Falls, Unions Double Down on Politics
March 10, 2023 // Labor unions portray themselves as champions of the little guy – standing up for workers against powerful special interests. But declining union membership rates suggest that many workers are no longer convinced that unions speak for them. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2022, the overall union membership rate fell to its lowest levels since the government began tracking it in 1983. Just 10.1% of wage and salary workers belonged to a union, down from 10.3% in 2021 – only about half the 20.1% rate of 1983. In other words, nearly 9 out of 10 American workers are not in a union, despite union efforts to organize them.
Economic Costs of the PRO Act: Update
March 8, 2023 // The PRO Act would reclassify independent contractors, broaden the joint employer standard, repeal right-to-work laws, and eliminate employers’ ability to replace striking workers. While the intent of the bill is to increase worker protections, many of the provisions ignore stated worker preferences and have the potential to harm the labor market through increased costs that small businesses, franchisees, and entrepreneurs likely cannot afford. This paper estimates that the bill could increase employment costs by anywhere from $18–$61 billion and put up to $2.3 trillion of gross domestic product at risk