"Workers and organized labor are cool again. Young Americans are the country’s most pro-union generation. Labor has poll ratings most politicians only dream about, and the Biden administration is making workers’ pay, benefits and rights its calling card. [snip]
"... Heralds of change include well-publicized organizing efforts in new sectors of the economy, broad public sympathy for the Hollywood writers’ struggle, and big wage gains by workers increasingly willing to strike for them.
"There is also President Biden, the most outspokenly pro-labor president since Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. Progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) support Biden’s reelection partly because they get how the often-unheralded work of his administration is making a new era for labor possible..." -- E.J. Dionne, Jr., starting off an op/ ed on the resurgence of labor unions and the cultural shift that's come with the demonstrated economic value of unions. Dionne quotes from a Treasury Department report that finds that "unions raise the wages of their members by 10 to 15 percent, have 'spillover effects' that benefit nonunion workers, 'reduce race and gender wage gaps' and 'boost businesses’ productivity.'” Young American workers with higher expectations are finding that unionization can increase their wage and job security, giving them leverage that non- union workers don't have. No wonder they're the most pro- union generation.
2 comments:
Unions have always been about supporting the working class. It’s the strongest tool we have to date for making things fair. It’s a no brainer. Its only weakness is corporates ability to manipulate some of its work force into believing having less money and no protections is the way. Thankfully, this next generation is having none of it.
Bigtoe -- agree completely.
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