Asian Pacific Americans Tell Their Stories at First National Workers’ Rights Hearing
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Ricky Lau, an electrician with the Electrical Workers (IBEW) and a Chinese immigrant, worked for 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week for his former employer, a contracting company. He and his mostly immigrant co-workers, many of whom did not speak English, were ripped off, he says. While they worked 60 to 70 hours, their weekly time cards read 16 to 20 hours. They had no benefits and no health care coverage.
Fed up, he and three other co-workers left the company and joined IBEW. With the help of his union, Lau and the other workers have been able to assert themselves. Now the four workers are suing the company in a class-action suit for back wages.
Report: Face of Unions More Diverse
The face of the union movement has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. In 1983, more than half of all union workers were white men, few union workers had a college degree and nearly one-third were in manufacturing. Today, almost half are women, more than one-third have college degrees and only one in 10 work in manufacturing.
“The Changing Face of Labor, 1983-2008,” a new report released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), shows the union movement is more diverse than 25 years ago. The makeup of union members reflects similar shifts in the overall workforce. About half of union workers are in the public sector, while one of every 10 is in manufacturing; and the remaining four are in the private sector outside of manufacturing. Click here to read the report.
Says CEPR senior economist John Schmitt, one of the report’s authors:
The view that the typical union worker is a white male manufacturing worker may have been correct a quarter of a century ago, but it’s not an accurate description of those in today’s labor movement. The unionized workforce is changing with the country, The fastest growing groups in the overall economy are also the fastest growing groups in the labor movement.
Minimum Wage Increases Today—10 Million See More Pay
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Today, nearly 10 million workers in 31 states get a raise when the federal minimum wage increases by 70 cents to $7.25 an hour.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the raise will act as a significant economic stimulus “at a moment when it is critically needed—one that will lift all boats so Americans and businesses can stay afloat and ride out this economic storm.”
The raise will put an extra $2,000 a year into the paychecks of a full-time minimum wage worker. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), that increase will generate $5.5 billion in consumer spending over the next year—providing a boost to the economy without any increase in government spending. This is money that will be spent, Sweeney says, on basic necessities such as groceries, electricity, rent and transportation.
This is not money that will be saved for a rainy day or spent on lavish vacations overseas. Now, that’s not a bad return on a 70-cent-an hour investment. Indeed, a 2008 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago confirmed that minimum wage increases boost consumer spending substantially more than tax cuts do.
Report: Paid Sick Leave Doesn’t Hurt Economy
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As Congress begins considering legislation that would guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days per year, a new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a nonpartisan think tank, finds that mandatory paid sick days do not lead to higher unemployment.
“Paid Sick Days Don’t Cause Unemployment” examines the connection between government-mandated paid sick days and the national rate of unemployment in 22 highly developed countries. Click here to read the report.
Says John Schmitt, a senior economist at CEPR and co-author of the report:
Despite frequent claims to the contrary from some in the business community, we found no correlation between paid sick days and unemployment. Guaranteeing paid sick days does not put countries at a competitive disadvantage.
New Bill Would Aid Many of the 57 Million U.S. Workers Without Paid Sick Leave
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Unlike workers in 21 of the richest nations in the world, U.S. workers have no guaranteed paid sick leave to care for themselves or a family member who is ill.
Although union members can bargain for paid sick leave and some firms offer paid leave, nearly half of private-sector workers in this country have no paid sick days. Low-income workers fare even worse—76 percent have no paid sick leave. Overall, 57 million private-sector workers have no paid sick days, and 94 million cannot use their paid sick leave to care for an ailing child.
Today in the House, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) reintroduced the Healthy Families Act, which would require employers with 15 or more employees to allow workers to earn up to seven paid sick leave days a year to take care of themselves or a family member. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is expected to reintroduce the Senate version of the bill later this week.
Women Workers Less Likely to Have Secure Retirement
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Women workers are less likely than men to have enough money to retire comfortably because they generally live longer than men and earn less on the job, according to a new report. It will take a three-pronged approach to help women have a secure retirement, the report says: traditional pensions, supplemental 401(k)-type savings and Social Security.
“Shattering the Retirement Glass Ceiling: Women Need a Three-Legged Stool,” released this month by the non-profit research group National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), found that because of her longer life expectancy, a woman with an annual income of $50,000 would need to save $1,000 more toward retirement every year than her male counterpart to have an equal retirement experience. Yet, more than 45 years after the Equal Pay Act was signed, women in the United States still earn only 78 cents for every dollar men earn—even with similar education, skills and experience—and African American and Hispanic women earn even less. The wage difference makes saving money more difficult for many women.
Employee Free Choice Web Roundup
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One way to celebrate May Day is to catch up on recent coverage of the Employee Free Choice Act, so here’s a roundup of news, resources and blog posts from the week about the fight to ensure workers have the freedom to form unions without harassment and intimidation from managers.
* In the Huffington Post, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff looks at Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to leave the Republican Party and says the union movement will be “watching closely” to see how Specter votes on issues critical to working people. Acuff says the Specter switch is a step in the right direction for the Employee Free Choice Act:
Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat makes the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act much more fluid and passage much more likely.
The labor movement will re-double our already overwhelming efforts in Pennsylvania to convince the Senator to once again support the bill that he was a co-sponsor of.
Unions Increase Wages of Service Workers
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After decades of disappointing wage growth for U.S. workers, a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that joining a union significantly boosts the wages of service-sector workers.
The report, “Unions and Upward Mobility for Service-Sector Employees,” shows that union membership raises the wages of the average service-sector worker by 10.1 percent, or about $2 per hour. According to the report, 13.3 percent of service-sector workers were either members of unions or covered by union contracts at their workplace in the 2004-2007 period. Click here to read the report.
On average, joining a union increases by 19 percentage points the likelihood that a service-sector worker will have employer-provided health insurance. Also, unionized service-sector workers were 25 percentage points more likely to have pensions than their nonunion peers.
Employee Free Choice: A Positive Change for U.S. Labor Law
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The Employee Free Choice Act, introduced in the U.S. House and Senate on Tuesday, would represent a critical change to the nation’s labor law. It’s a serious reform that would repair a broken system that is badly tilted away from workers.
Yesterday at the National Press Club, experts on the process got a chance to discuss what the Employee Free Choice Act would mean for workers, for management and for the economy, in a discussion hosted by the American Constitution Society (ACS). The panelists included Julie Martinez Ortega, research director of American Rights at Work; Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research; management lawyer Willis Goldsmith; and Carol Piel, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Martinez Ortega put the case for passing the Employee Free Choice Act this way:
This is ultimately about what individual workers want to do to improve their workplace. If we can’t give people the tools to do that, there’s a problem.
In One Out of Four Union Campaigns, a Worker Will Be Illegally Fired
Every time workers try to exercise their freedom to form a union, there’s a better than one-in-four chance that a worker will be illegally fired as a result. That’s the finding of a new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), and it’s a strong argument for passing the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring the freedom to form unions and bargain.
As part of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which is meeting in Miami this week, one of the study’s authors, economist John Schmitt, is holding a conference call to discuss the findings in the report and the critical need for labor laws that protect workers. Schmitt is being joined by workers who have been fired for trying to form a union.
In a strong statement delivered via video last night, Obama thanked the AFL-CIO for advocating on behalf of working people and included the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act among his priorities.
