Wisconsin's war on unions has gutted schools. The rest of America could be next.
The Iron Workers want to attract and retain more journeywomen, who tend to quit at a higher rate. The demographic represents a huge opportunity for growth, a way to bolster the future dues-paying membership. But recruiting women into a historically male space - and keeping them around - isn't as easy. Almost 9 in 10 female construction workers have dealt with sexual harassment on the job, aLabor Department study found.
Pay discrimination based on sex has been illegal since the Equal Pay Act was passed way back in 1963. Still, the pay gap remains at 22 cents on the dollar for full-time, year-round work, and it hasn’t moved in over a decade. At that pace the gap won’t close until 2059, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. African-American women won’t meet the benchmark until August. Native American women must wait until September. And Latino women until November.
New York's unionized workforce has remained fairly steady over the past decade — giving the state by far the largest percentage of union members of any state and bucking national declines in union membership.
"Salting" built the early American labor movement -- and it can revive it today.
In some of the most brutal authoritarian regimes, labor unions have been the anchor of a broad working-class movement for democracy. Think South Africa, Brazil, South Korea. Our worker movements, political movements and unions must be wary of co-optation. We are not here for one-off gains for some of us. We are here to build broader movements for all of us. The minimum wage is a tool for organizing as much as it is a policy outcome.
The top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board issued an official opinion this week that players at all 17 private colleges in the FBS are employees of their schools. It is a significant expansion of a 2014 ruling by NLRB regional director Peter S. Ohr that Northwestern football players are employees.
If New Hampshire, Missouri and Kentucky succeed in enacting "right-to-work" bills, it would be the most states rolling back union power in one year since 1947, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Success in New Hampshire would also make it the first state in the Northeast with a "right-to-work" law. The bills are a further reflection of organized labor's falling clout. Just 10.7 percent of American workers belonged to a labor union in 2016.
An investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting found systemic race and gender discrimination throughout the temp industry, including in Chicago.
That states can pass laws banning mandatory union dues is not new. Congress amended labor law in 1947 to allow individual states to pass right-to-work laws.
“How it affects the workforce is really simple: It lowers wages,” said Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center. “If you strip it to its core, this is about reducing the power of workers to bargain for a decent living.”
Spread the word