As the Supreme Court gets ready to deal a major blow to public sector unions, here’s a reminder of how much unions do to increase equality in this country. A University of California-Berkeley Labor Center report on the effects of unions in California shows how unions help close racial and gender gaps in wages and more:
- Union coverage increases wages by 26 percent for women, compared to 15 percent for men.
- Black and Latino/a workers see a bigger increase in their average wages from union coverage
(19 percent for Black workers and 40 percent for Latino/a workers) compared to White workers (9 percent).
- Immigrant workers also see slightly larger wage gains from union coverage (19 percent) compared to U.S.-born workers (18 percent).
Effects are similar for having employer-sponsored health coverage and retirement plans—unions make it more likely workers will have these benefits, and they make the economy a little more equal. And if more workers were in unions, that could make the economy a lot more equal.
● Social Security trustees report shows why we should expand the program—not look for excuses to cut it.
● Costco has raised its minimum wage to $14 an hour.
● Editorial staff at the New Yorker are seeking a union:
The group includes copy editors, web producers, fact-checkers, photo and design staff, the social-media and publicity teams, editorial assistants, and assistant editors. Management and senior-level employees are excluded, as are staff writers, whose job title would not escape the red pen of the magazine’s fact department: Writers at TheNew Yorker are nearly all independent contractors, rather than staff, and thus do not receive health care or other benefits, despite being largely prevented from writing for other outlets.
● Labor's new terrain: Working on the supply chain gang.
A factory fire recently illustrated just how vulnerable are the supply chains at the heart of the global economy. The fire was at a single supplier—yet it forced Ford to temporarily halt production of the nation’s bestselling truck, the F-150.
Think how much leverage workers could have if we acted like the fire.
● Rank-and-file union members are leading another massive strike. This time, it's AT&T workers.