Posts tagged Pro-Union President
You may have heard of the ‘union boom.’ The numbers tell a different story
March 2, 2023 // Headline writers began declaring things like, "Employees everywhere are organizing" and that the United States was seeing a "union boom." In September, the White House asserted "Organized labor appears to be having a moment." However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released its union data for 2022. And their data shows that — far from a resurgence — the share of American workers in a union has continued to decline. Last year, the union membership rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 10.1% — the lowest on record. This was the second year in a row that the union rate fell. Only one in ten American workers is now in a union, down from nearly one in three workers during the heyday of unions back in the 1950s.
The Unionization Rate Went, Uh, Down?
January 26, 2023 // Meanwhile, unionization in the private sector is 6.0 percent (down from 6.1 percent in 2021). Perhaps this is because median weekly earnings among union members rose $47 in 2002, compared to a rise of $54 among non-union workers. This is the latest year in a declining union earnings premium that reached as much as 30 percent in 2007 but was just over 18 percent in 2022
Flanked by Union Allies, Biden Touts $36 Billion Pension Bailout
December 9, 2022 // President Joe Biden announced a $36 billion bailout for the Central States Pension Fund, one of the nation’s biggest multi-employer plans, touting the help for union workers and retirees as he looks to mend ties with organized labor after a contentious rail deal.
Op-ed: The NLRB is gutting free speech to protect unions
November 4, 2022 // The reason behind Biden’s vow remains clear as day — unions are one of the largest drivers of cash to Democratic campaign coffers, spending $1.8 billion in the 2020 cycle alone. To deliver on this campaign promise, Biden has weaponized the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to clamp down on workplace speech and drive up union membership. Congress needs to get hold of the runaway NLRB before it is too late.
The Monopoly Hiding in Plain Sight
October 19, 2022 // Imagine if unions were connected to workers rather than workplaces. They could provide a better safety net for those between jobs. Health insurance, unemployment insurance, and professional development could be provided by unions or employment co-ops, rather than by employers, which would make economic downturns less risky for workers. Tying these services to your employer is the equivalent of putting all your eggs in a basket that someone else is carrying. The measure of a union should be how well it serves its members. If workers had the freedom to join the union of their choice, worker organizations would be motivated to constantly find new and better ways of serving their customers. This is a bipartisan compromise that could both improve the labor market and reverse unions’ multi-decade decline.
Biden Loves Labor Unions But Blue-Collar Workers Don’t Love Him Back
September 8, 2022 // Macomb County, Michigan, is home to an old guard of auto manufacturing tradesmen and a new generation of young organizers in the service and cannabis industries. The jolt of organizing energy that Biden has failed to harness has come from baristas, warehouse workers and others in the service sector, whose low-wage jobs are replacing reliable, higher-paid ones on assembly lines in Macomb and elsewhere. Alyssa Coakley, Celine McNicholas,
Biden backs California farmworkers union bill as pressure on Newsom grows
September 6, 2022 // Biden in his statement did not name Newsom, who vetoed a similar bill last year, but Biden’s support comes as many advocates stage protests and vigils in Sacramento calling on the California Democrat to sign the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro have both urged Newsom to sign the bill. United Farm Workers president Teresa Romero,
AFL-CIO leader braces for GOP takeover of Congress
September 2, 2022 // The AFL-CIO has its sights set on gaining one million new members over the next decade, or 100,000 per year. It currently boasts a membership of more than 12.5 million workers, down from its all-time high of nearly 20 million in 1979. Overall, far fewer workers are a member of a labor union. The membership rate declined in 2021 to 10.3%, offsetting the previous year’s gains, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Biden administration uses taxpayer dollars to help grow public unions, critics push back
August 26, 2022 // “This upgraded resource will be an excellent tool for our union to locate non-union employees across the federal government who are rightfully entitled to representation and a voice in their workplace,” said NFFE National President Randy Erwin. “NFFE specifically requested assistance in identifying the hundreds of thousands of unrepresented government workers, and today OPM delivered on its commitment to promote employee organizing and collective bargaining by rolling out the enhanced database. We are excited to help these federal employees who have not yet joined a union organize in their workplaces and obtain critical rights and benefits through unionizing.”
Opinion: If Democrats want votes, they should rain fury on union-busting corporations
August 9, 2022 // The power of workers relative to the power of the investment class must be rebalanced. Rebuilding the power of unions is the only way out of this trap, unless you are credulous enough to believe that we will all be rescued by the sudden radicalization of the tax policymakers on the House ways and means committee. If you ever want to live in a country where the American dream is more than a cruel, tantalizing joke, you have a stake in the revival of organized labor. History shows that organized labor thrives when it has the government’s support, and suffers without it. We are supposedly living under the most pro-union president of our lifetimes. So? Let’s hear some damn fire, man. The only reason companies feel so free to abuse their workers is that they don’t believe anyone will make them pay for it.