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LCLAA: Union Membership Good for Latino Community |
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To get a stake in America’s economy and a better life for themselves and their families, Latinos need the freedom to form unions and bargain—which means they need the Employee Free Choice Act.
That’s the conclusion of a new article by Gabriela Lemus, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), a national organization for Latino working families and an AFL-CIO constituency group. LCLAA has joined other prominent voices in the Latino community, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the National Latino Congreso, in supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. Lemus says Latinos should “wholeheartedly support” the Employee Free Choice Act.
Lemus says the union advantages of better health care, pensions and wages—Latino union members make 43 percent higher median wages than Latinos who don’t have a union—are critical to giving this community a shot at being part of a strong middle class. The demographics of the Latino community, Lemus says, make union membership especially helpful to Latinos.
In particular, young men and women just entering the work world benefit from protections that collective bargaining provides.
Latinos are among the youngest population group in the United States. Their median age is 25.8 years—more than 10 years younger than that for the U.S. population as a whole…union membership would assist them not just in earning a livable wage. It could move many into jobs where they learn more skills, take on greater responsibilities and gain added benefits.
Lemus says that as the Latino population reaches retirement, union membership will help ensure a decent standard of living after retirement because of the greater access to pensions and the increased ability to save for retirement that come with a union contract.
It’s not just individuals who benefit, Lemus says. The communities where Latinos live and work stand to gain from greater access to union membership.
Where unions are stronger, not only are wages higher and health insurance more accessible; there are numerous other benefits. In states with higher union density, it is more likely that poverty will be reduced. There will be more homeowners than renter and better schools because there is greater public education spending per pupil. The three are inter-related.
LCLAA has a fact sheet available about the Latino population and union membership. The Employee Free Choice Act is critical to restore the freedom to form unions, and that really matters to working men and women, including the Latino community.
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Good for American citizens,when will you stop seperating yourself and act for the common good of our country?
Strongbuck,they never will stop separating themsleves from the rest of the country.They didn’t come here to become AMERICANS,they intend to keep their latin heritage at the expense of the rest of us.Most of them will not abide by our legal system,they have proven it by the way they came here law means little to them.
Why is it that “organized” labor has a tendency to use the hispanic or latino issue to push for an agenda? Union are always claiming, sometimes falsely, that there is discrimination against specific group of people or workers, but the unions are playing the same sick game when establishing a separation.
The fact of the matter is that unions do the same exact thing. Unions pay less to workers from minority groups; unions discriminate and reps. are not representatives of the workforce in many, if not most, instances; unions have rejected hispanics for many years for fears and for being politically correct within their jurisdiction or market area. Unions are big businesses that are after hispanics now because the membership has been decreasing and cannot recover the workers’ trust in other areas.
About EFCA: union officials perfectly know that during the card signing process those handling the cards manipulate, lie, falsify, mislead, deceive, you name it; and maybe there is a little transparency; and yes, most workers do not know what they are signing or the real and actual meaning of most of the authorization cards out there. EFCA does not eliminate the secret ballot (technically) but in real life it will…democracy?
What if tomorrow we do the same thing with the election of our president? whoever get the majority of the signatures in the country is the president…wow, I would like to see the union then…
I can’t undrstand why a bunch of Latinos getting together to make life more livable by struggling for living wage, would prompt anyone to claim that these people would act this way for them selves. Is that what the big scare is about?
Big business is not labor, big business is Arpy of American Airlines having millions of dollars in executive bonuses when his company is loosing money. Is this happening Only at American Airlines.
Go and talk to your company about reasonable benefits, health and retirement lets say. Enjoy your days off thanks to the Union.
I know from where I work, equal access to the employees forming or wanting a union are harassed by management in many ways. But a company man would be blind to that.
Take it from a Chicano who has lived and seen what silence in the work place can do. Open your eyes to the slave practices that go on farms, construction, and the service industry. You must be sittiing fat not know or care about anyone but yourelf.
hispanics are going through the racism that Italians and the Irish went through when they first started coming to this country, now that hispanics are starting to show political strength thru orginizing for better living conditions and wages, and with possibility of becoming the majority in parts of the US, a few outspoken Americans have spread half truths and outright lies about immigration, I pray that America will research both sides before of the issue before spreading these lies.