Labor Day is a time to celebrate the accomplishments of workers. But this year feels much different. Over the last year, working people have risked everything to keep our communities safe.
Recently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dropped a bombshell about one of the most-watched union organizing campaigns in decades. Board Hearing Officer Kerstin Meyers stated that in defeating the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in the February-March 2021 mail-in ballot election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, the retail giant cheated and should now face a rerun election.
President Biden, who has a stronger union background than any incoming president for decades, has promised to adopt a strong pro-worker agenda, and he has already assembled a labor-focused economic team. Here are five issues that the new Biden Administration should prioritize.
Meet the union behind your favorite mobilizing and organizing tools — and find out why you should organize your workplace too!
America’s unions are campaigning for Joe Biden by phone, mail, and text—but not by talking face-to-face with voters. Except for the hotel workers.
As Labor Day approaches and economic conditions in the U.S. remain tenuous, Americans’ 65% approval of labor unions is once again the highest it has been since 2003.
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored both the importance of unions in giving workers a collective voice in the workplace and the urgent need to reform U.S. labor laws to arrest the erosion of those rights. During the crisis, unionized workers have been able to secure enhanced safety measures, additional premium pay, paid sick time, and a say in the terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs. These pandemic-specific benefits build on the many ways unions help workers. Following are just a few of the benefits, according to the latest data:
In 2019, CEOs of S&P 500 companies received, on average, $14.8 million in total compensation. The average S&P 500 company CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 264-to-1. The imbalance in our economy between the pay of CEOs and working people continues to be a problem.
Our mission is to give the workers of the solid waste and recycling division the respect and dignity they have earned.
As the labor movement grapples with systemic racism and police violence, we must ask ourselves the same question King posed on that fateful April morning. If the labor movement does not act forcefully in response to the plague of racism and police violence, what will happen to our sisters and brothers?