Tag: labor unions
Public Approval Of Unions At Highest Point Since 1965, Again

Public Approval Of Unions At Highest Point Since 1965, Again

Public support for unions is at its highest level since 1965, according to Gallup’s annual pre-Labor Day survey. And if that headline sounds familiar, it’s because last year Gallup also found the highest public support for unions since 1965.

In 2021, 68 percent of people surveyed said they approved of labor unions. In 2022, 71 percent said they approved. That’s a “statistically similar” number, as Gallup puts it, but before the pandemic, the number was 64 percent. That’s part of an ongoing trend in the right direction: “Support for labor unions was highest in the 1950s, when three in four Americans said they approved,” Gallup notes. “Support only dipped below the 50% mark once, in 2009, but has improved in the 13 years since and now sits at a level last seen nearly 60 years ago.”

Recent years have seen a series of teacher uprisings against education budget cuts and low wages—teachers face a significant pay penalty in comparison with other equivalently educated workers—and, this year, a remarkable string of union wins at Starbucks along with one enormous win at Amazon. The COVID-19 pandemic also spurred many workers to reconsider their relationships with their work and their employers, as workers dubbed “essential” early in the pandemic soon saw themselves treated as disposable and workers faced the competing pressures of care work, health and safety, and the demands of their employers.

Over the past decade-plus, unions have also led fights for policies like an increased minimum wage and paid leave—extremely successful initiatives at the state level, even if those policies remain stalled at the federal level—that benefit all workers, not just union members. Even if you don’t pay attention to the data showing that unions reduce economic inequality, the old right-wing attacks on unions as purely self-interested very obviously don’t hold water.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

us economy

How Can Americans Best Measure Biden’s Economic Success?

Reprinted with permission from Democracy Journal

As President-elect Biden's team prepares a plan to get the country back on our feet from COVID's debilitating blow, he and his team will be considering a raft of economic proposals. But how should they assess which proposals to prioritize?

We need a new lens through which to analyze economic ideas. For too long, media and politicians have trumpeted stock market indices, GDP figures, trade deficits, and other macroeconomic indicators to portray the economic health of our nation. As wealth and inequality have soared to obscene levels in society, there is increasing public understanding that the Dow and quarterly corporate earnings reports aren't the best measures of economic vibrancy. Yet there is less consensus on what economic indicators we should instead be heeding, a need that will grow in importance as we emerge from COVID.

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Andy Barr

House Republican Report On Workers Is Bursting With Lies About Labor Unions

Reprinted with permission from DCReport

Ten House Republicans who fashion themselves policy wonks are out with their diagnosis of what ails the American worker. Their proposed cure is a future that would be brutish, nasty and short.

The Hobbesian, dog-eat-dog policies the Republican Study Group proposes would enhance the power of those born to privilege, just so long as nothing knocks them off their comfortable perch.

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#EndorseThis: On Labor Day, Angry Boss Asks What Unions Have Done For Us

#EndorseThis: On Labor Day, Angry Boss Asks What Unions Have Done For Us

Facing a unionization drive or a contract dispute, many an irritated boss has denigrated the labor movement. Far too many Americans swallow the anti-labor rhetoric spewed by management, which is why our middle-class is struggling, our living standards have declined, and our democracy is in danger from powerful plutocrats.

“What have unions ever done for us?” is an appropriate question for Labor Day. The answer deserves to be shared today and every day.