Tag: labour movement

What does the enthusiasm from top Democrats about the strike, and others like it, say about the party’s relationship to unions right now? But labor’s in a position now to make them prove exactly how serious they are about that support, and I think that’s why we’re seeing what looks like a surge of enthusiasm from this year’s crop of candidates. Ed: Well, there’s a supply as well as a demand side to this phenomenon: all these candidates pursuing a fixed quantity of labor resources and endorsements. But is that renewed attention simply a result of the party’s leftward drift, or is it because labor has actually gotten more powerful too? Members have told me that their fellow workers didn’t need a lot of convincing to stay in their unions after Janus. Unions promise workers a way to better their conditions. Ben: You wrote that unions may take a while, perhaps a long while, to endorse a Democratic candidate. I’d say the other front-runners to be the labor candidate are Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, who’s really working hard to position herself as a pro-teacher candidate. Ed: That’s especially interesting insofar as AFT is a union whose membership skews pretty heavily female. Sarah: There might be an interesting gender divide within the labor movement this year.

(CNN)On Wednesday, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that could cripple public-sector unions -- and speed up organized labor's increasing fade as a powerhouse in American politics. This court decision comes almost a decade after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won a years-long battle to drastically reduce collective bargaining rights for public employees in the Badger State. Walker beat back a recall effort driven by distaste with collective bargaining move -- and is running for a third term in 2018. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, membership in the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association has dropped 30% since Act 10 -- the collective bargaining law -- went into effect. Union members made up 14.2% of workers before Act 10, but just 8.3% in 2015. Tweeted Trump: "Supreme Court rules in favor of non-union workers who are now, as an example, able to support a candidate of his or her choice without having those who control the Union deciding for them. Court precedent, however, long held that you couldn't force non-members to pay fees for political activity -- Wednesday's ruling was about fees charged for issues related to collective bargaining. In the 2016 election, labor unions spent more than $217 million on political activities, with that money overwhelmingly going to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The court decision Wednesday is likely to accelerate union struggles -- both in terms of labor's organizing ability, bargaining power and political might.

Labor unions are trying to take back politics in the Midwest. On Labor Day — designated a federal holiday in 1894 to honor America’s labor movement — at least eight Democratic candidates will hold rallies in five Midwest cities to tell workers just how far the country has veered from its pro-labor roots. In Iowa, Republicans rolled back an increase in the minimum wage in March. Each candidate will center their campaigns on their support for a $15 minimum wage, progressive health care, and pro-union policies. Cathy Glasson, a registered nurse and union leader in Iowa who will officially announce after Labor Day her campaign for governor in 2018, said that before this year, she had never considered running for elected office. We had raised the minimum wage in five counties in Iowa and this administration literally took money out of the pockets of Iowans — 85,000 Iowans were affected by the rollback here.” Like other first-time politicians throwing themselves into 2018, Glasson has been a union member for decades and will prioritize the need for more American workers to join unions and employee associations. One of the country’s largest labor unions, SEIU and its Fight for $15 arm — a national campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 — will announce Monday a push to elect labor-friendly candidates in 2018 in the Midwest states where unions once held tremendous power. Republicans in Wisconsin have gerrymandered the state so they do not fear losing their seats, Bryce noted, but the union movement is going to latch onto policies that he believes will resonate with voters across party lines, like wages and health care. “It’s the right thing to do but it’s also going to help create jobs,” he said. “By collecting and pooling union members’ money, we are a force to be reckoned with in politics, and so the intentional attack on unions in the state of Iowa and the Midwest and beyond is intentional to silent the voice of everyday workers that need to have a voice in politics.” Bryce agreed that if unions do not get involved now, the Trump administration could decimate the labor movement to a point of no return.