So much going on in the news lately but I wanted to take a moment to highlight this:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sees a lot to like in the wave of teacher strikes, from West Virginia to Kentucky to Oklahoma to Arizona. But what pleases him most is that the revolt is being driven from the bottom up, as teachers start their own grassroots movements and the unions follow their lead.
“If you’re noticing what’s going on, the teachers are ahead of their union officials. I’m very impressed by that,” Sanders told HuffPost. “To my mind, this is the tip of the iceberg, with workers standing up.”
Sanders said the teacher walkouts are evidence that more workers would like to band together in unions if only the law made it easier. To that end, the senator led a group of Democrats in unveiling a bill Wednesday that would dramatically reform labor law and boost the dwindling ranks of unions in the private sector, where just 6.5 percent of workers are members today.
“The facts are very clear that workers in unions earn significantly higher wages than non-union workers,” Sanders said. “The reason we have seen such an assault not only on existing unions but against the rights of workers to join unions is employers know that. If they can prevent workers from becoming organized, they can pay insufficient wages.”
Sanders’ bill, called the Workplace Democracy Act, would remove several of the major barriers to organized labor’s growth.
And here’s another key factor of the bill:
Additionally, the Workplace Democracy Act, like EFCA, would force companies to submit to mandatory arbitration if the union and the employer are unable to reach a first union contract after 90 days of bargaining.
An analysis done by EPI showed that 37% of all new unions are unable to achieve a first contract within the first two years of bargaining, effectively leaving many unions toothless in enforcing workplace standards.
However, unlike the Employee Free Choice Act, Sanders’ bill is more bold. It would repeal key sections of the anti-union Taft Hartley law enacted during “the Red Scare” in 1947.
Sanders’ bill would ban so-called “right-to-work” provisions, where workers receiving union representation are allowed to opt out of paying union dues. The Workplace Democracy Act would also overturn Taft-Hartley provisions that prohibit unions from picketing the suppliers or financiers of anti-union companies.
The bill sets up a clash with supporters of a case now before the supreme court. That case, Janus v American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, would ban unions charging “agency” or “fair share” fees to non-union members in return for representing them in collective bargaining agreements. If passed Janus would have a devastating impact on union dues.
The bill has 14 co-sponsors in the House and 13 co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate including Reps. Mark Pocan (D. WI) and Rosa DeLauro (D. CT):
“Republicans like President Trump and [Wisconsin] Governor [Scott] Walker continue to crack down on unions and push a special interest, corporate-driven agenda that makes it harder for middle class families to get ahead,” Pocan said in a statement. “And while they stack the deck against the American worker, unions are fighting to expand economic opportunity and strengthen the middle class.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), a bill co-sponsor, said in a statement that while “corporate interests are highly organized and fight like hell to make sure their interests are protected,” Congress should ensure union organizers and workers can more easily bargain for good wages and benefits. “The biggest economic challenge of our time is that people are in jobs that do not pay them enough to live on,” DeLauro said.
Unionized workers are half as likely to be victims of minimum wage violations and earn 13.2 percent more than peers with similar education and qualifications in non-unionized jobs,
according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Even workers who aren’t covered by a union have reaped the benefits of strong unions that haven’t been weakened by lawmakers hostile to labor. EPI found that women workers represented by unions make 9.2 percent more than women who aren’t covered by a union. Black and Hispanic workers, according to EPI data, “get a larger boost from unionization than their white counterparts.” Unionized Black construction workers in New York City, for example, make 36.1 percent more than the city’s non-unionized Black construction workers.
Here are all the co-sponsors:
The bill is cosponsored in the House by Representatives Brendan Boyle (PA-13), Katherine Clark (MA-05), Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11), Keith Ellison (MN-05), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Donald Norcross (NJ-01), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03), Mark Takano (CA-41), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12). The bill is cosponsored in the Senate by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Edward Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
And really, every Democrat should sponsor it:
Thirteen of Sanders’s Democratic colleagues have signed onto this legislation — including virtually every suspected 2020 hopeful in the upper chamber (Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris are all represented). And yet, a wide array of (self-identified) progressive senators — including ones from states with strong labor presences — have not signed onto the bill.
It’s possible that these legislators simply haven’t gotten around to it — there is a lot going on right now, and this bill isn’t gonna come up for a vote any time soon. It’s also possible that they object to some little detail in this proposal but are hard at work at their own labor bills.
But if 35 Senate Democrats have no intention of supporting comprehensive labor-law reform of any kind, then 35 Senate Democrats are so deeply committed to protecting the ability of employers to exploit their workers, they’re willing to put their party at an electoral disadvantage for the sake of abetting such exploitation. There’s little reason to believe that this actually the case. But those who haven’t signed onto Sanders’s bill would do well to clarify that it isn’t, posthaste.
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