Medicaid authorities have launched a new attack on unions serving home healthcare workers. Make no mistake: This is nothing but another step in a 40-year attack on public employee unions.
Instead of being sufficiently innovative, says Seattle SEIU Local 775 David Rolf, most labor leaders have been “reinvesting and doubling down on our American system of enterprise-based collective bargaining since the union movement started to shrink in the early 1950s.” The result: “Through decades . . . we’ve seen unions grow weaker and weaker every year while continuing to repeat the same strategic directions.”
Leaders must also know when it’s time for a new person to take the helm. To keep new blood flowing through the labor movement, older leaders have to make room for their successors, RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, said.
“You have to get out of the way. You can’t just talk about it,” she said. “If you’re a leader, a strong leader, you step down and open that up to someone you believe reflects where this union needs to be.”
A new report links the drop in union membership with the rise in income inequality. But labor activists are finding new ways to help workers.
The labor movement's agenda was on full display at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Union delegates numbered roughly one-quarter of the convention’s 4,000-plus delegates. Still, there were stark reminders that labor has struggled to keep at bay the party’s coziness with corporations, especially those of the Silicon Valley disruption variety. Ride-hailing giant Uber—not unionized taxi cabs—served as the DNC’s exclusive shuttle service.
Adjuncts make up about 70% of the American professoriate. Adjuncts usually make $20,000–$25,000 a year, often by teaching courses at various institutions each semester. They have no job security, and frequently receive no health or retirement benefits. But they have begun fighting to improve their lot. SEIU is organizing in several states.
Spread the word