SEARCH
Employee Free Choice Act Would Lead to Better Jobs, Less Poverty |
 |
|
This is the first in a series of blogs on the findings of a new Center for American Progress report, From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half.
America is the richest nation in the world, yet 37 million Americans, nearly equivalent to the population of California, live below the poverty line and millions more struggle to get by every month. Over the past six years, the number of poor Americans has increased by 5 million and inequality have increased.
A major study released today by the Poverty Task Force of the Center for American Progress (CAP) finds that in 2005, the top 1 percent of American households held 19.3 percent of the nation’s income, equal to its largest share since 1929. At the same time, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that in 2005, those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale had just 3.4 percent of total income.
Right now, one in eight Americans is considered officially poor and one in three is defined as low income. And those who have jobs aren’t faring much better. One-fourth of all workers are in jobs for which year-round full-time work would not pay enough to keep a family of four above the poverty threshold of $20,516.
In addition to detailing the extent of the nation’s poverty crisis, the report by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez outlines a pragmatic plan to cut poverty in half in the next 10 years.
Among the key solutions offered in the report, From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half: Making it easier for workers to join unions, which would go a long way toward alleviating poverty in the nation. The task force recommends the first step should be for Congress to enact the Employee Free Choice Act, which would put the choice to form a union in the hands of workers, not employers.
The House passed the Employee Free Choice Act March 1. The bill, S. 1041, is now in the Senate.
According to the report, workers should be able to freely join unions is clear because:
Among workers in similar jobs, unionized workers have higher pay, higher rates of health coverage, and better benefits than do non-unionized workers. Unions help non-unionized workers, too, by creating competitive pressure for employers to improve their wages and benefits. Joining a union can be especially important to low-wage workers. For example, union cashiers earn 46 percent more than nonunion cashiers, union food preparation workers earn nearly 50 percent more, and union maids and housekeeping cleaners earn 31 percent more.
A major factor contributing to the gap between the number of workers who want unions and the number who have them, the report says, is the “erosion of legal protection for workers who want to form a union, combined with aggressive, often unlawful, employer tactics, and an increasingly unresponsive National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that has failed to enforce workers’ rights under federal law.”
In a video shown at the Washington, D.C. press conference to release the report, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, who is a member of the CAP poverty task force, pointed out the Employee Free Choice Act:
- Provides for certification of a union when the majority of workers sign cards (majority signup) designating the union as their bargaining representative.
- Establishes stronger penalties for companies that illegally coerce or intimidate workers in an effort to prevent them from forming a union.
- Brings in a neutral third party to settle a first contract when a company and union cannot agree.
- Does not eliminate secret ballot elections, but gives workers a choice as to how they wish to form a union.
The CAP report goes on to say:
As Human Rights Watch has noted, when the card-check [majority signup] provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act become law, “workers’ chances of freely exercising their freedom of association would increase dramatically.” The increased union representation made possible by the Act would lead to better jobs and less poverty for American workers.
5 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Workers have to develop a class consciousness and band together to fight what’s happening. The Free Choice Act is great, but too many people don’t realize the value of unionization and try to associate with those who have the money to delude themselves into thinking they are not powerless. Things need to be done to combat this.
This really is not new news except for the numbers. Martin Luther King jr knew this back in the sixties and this sad fact is a facet of American history.
Unions and union membership in America has led to many changes for the good of American workers. True back then and if some reforms made, will be true again. Indeed we must do something to benefit the workers which I might add benefits the nation as a whole. Wall street and your home street are two very different things.
America is the only major nation that allows folks to go bankrupt for medical reasons. Sad fact is that the lack of universal health care coverage add to the misery workers.
A vote for a Repubicain is a vote for the rich not the poor.
American workers and the American middle class will be a lot better off once we’re able to considerably expand Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate in 2008. Rank and file Americans have lost dearly over the past 6 years as a result of the anti people policies of Cheney/Bush. Unions have to play a major role in achieving that objective. Then it will be up to all of us to make certain that our Democratic representatives remain honorable and forthright to serve and legislate policy on behalf of the American people; to better the lives of American families.
These numbers understate the problem, because they talk about income, not wealth. Take a look at this website, produced by the former communications director of the National Education Association: http://www.cipa-apex.org/toomuch/inequality.html. It shows, based on a study that wasn’t disputed by the Wall Street Journal when it reported on it, that the top one per cent of wealth holders in the country own more than one third of the country’s wealth. Top one per cent of income is subject to fluctuations in the economy, and is just a one year snapshot. Wealth is who owns what. That’s the more accurate figure to use when talking about the growing gap between the very rich and the rest of us.