Job growth is doing ... better than it had been since the start of the recession.
Unemployment is falling. But we have to master the balancing act of cheering the good news while remembering that the American economy and workers need much more.
The reality is this: We don't just need to get back the jobs lost in the recession. We need enough jobs to account for population growth, too. Average job growth was 246,000 a month in 2014, and, as the Economic Policy Institute's Elise Gould writes:
... the reality is that if we add 246,000 jobs a month going forward, it will take until August 2017 to hit the employment level needed to return the economy to the labor market health that prevailed in 2007. [...]
The high of the last year occurred in November, with today’s revisions bringing the number of jobs added in that month up to 353,000. If we were to create that number of jobs—the highest monthly number of the recovery—every month, we would return to pre-recession labor market health in August 2016. That’s awfully optimistic, and yet, still nearly 9 years since the recession began.
The economic news is a lot better than it was for years there. But that doesn't mean we can sit back and pretend everything is great now.
Continue reading below the fold for more of the week's labor and education news.
A fair day's wage
- At the Belabored podcast:
We peer behind the blue wall this week with historian Josh Freeman, to discuss how police and their unions fit within the labor movement, and parse the political contradictions of uniformed officers getting organized on the one hand, and serving as agents of the establishment on the other.
- Homecare providers push Gov. Brown to honor overtime pay pledge despite court ruling.
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- Oh, look. American Apparel not only got rid of notorious (accused) sexual harasser CEO Dov Charney, it has actually instituted a sexual harassment policy.
- Zara workers organized and they have a partial win:
In a letter shared with ThinkProgress, the company informed New York City employees that wages would be increasing and stores would be adding more full-time positions. Zara workers had launched the Change Zara campaign asking for higher pay and better scheduling at U.S. stores.
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- Collective bargaining's erosion expanded the productivity-pay gap:
When unions are able to set strong pay standards in particular occupations or industries through collective bargaining, the employers in those settings also raise the wages and benefits of nonunion workers toward the standards set through collective bargaining. Thus, the weakening of the collective bargaining system has had an adverse impact on the compensation of both union and nonunion workers.
- Undisputed facts about the minimum wage.
- A worker at the Doughnut Plant has filed a lawsuit alleging that she was demoted twice while pregnant then fired while on maternity leave. This happened after a supervisor told her she should stay home with her baby, by the way.
- Journalism with consequences: An Illinois check-cashing store has lost its business license after it was featured in a ProPublica story on the temp industry:
According to the order, the 26th and Central Park Currency Exchange arranged a deal with a labor broker to funnel temp workers to its check-cashing business. Under the arrangement, the temp agency gave the workers' paychecks to the labor broker who then brought them to the check cashing store. The store distributed the checks only after it had deducted fees for the broker and for its services, according to the order by the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
"The workers, earning minimum wage, were charged fees by the licensee well in excess of the amount permitted by law," Francisco Menchaca, director of the Division of Financial Institutions, wrote in the Dec. 2 order.
Education
- A victory for adjunct faculty in St. Louis.
- A dozen questions—and a dozen answers—about school reform.
- Why are teachers at an online charter school in California organizing? Stuff like this:
As CAVA’s enrollment climbed to 16,000, workload increased sharply. When Bryant started, she says, most teachers had around 150 students to cover in their subject area. That number rose 50 percent.
CAVA also started requiring teachers to complete administrative tasks such as monitoring attendance (noted when a student logs in each day) and tracking down unengaged students and their parents, mostly by phone and email.
Bryant used to know who all her students were, and they knew her, but “that connection isn’t there anymore,” she said. Teachers are expected to check in with all students, and they try to, but it isn’t always possible.
“It’s basically triage now,” Bryant says. “Anyone who is passing is considered okay.”