Why unions are good for workers--especially in a crisis like COVID-19

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a reality that U.S. workers have long confronted—U.S. labor law fails to protect working people. For decades, union leaders and workers’ rights advocates have called on policymakers to reform a badly broken system, warning that the erosion of unions—and of worker power more broadly—was contributing to extreme economic inequality and threatening our overall democracy.

In spite of efforts to push policy reforms, the U.S. entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a weak system of labor protections, historically low rates of union density, and extreme economic inequality. As a result, working people, particularly low-wage workers—who are disproportionately women and workers of color—have largely borne the costs of the pandemic. While providing the “essential” services we rely on, these workers have been forced to work without protective gear, have no access to paid sick leave, and when workers have spoken up about health and safety concerns they have been fired. Clearly, a system that allows this dynamic must be reformed.

Reform must be responsive to the lessons we have learned from the challenges working people have faced during the pandemic. One of the main lessons is the need for and power of workers’ collective voice in the workplace. Where workers have been able to act collectively and through their union, they have been able to secure enhanced safety measures, additional premium pay, and paid sick time. Unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers navigate the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs.

Research shows the advantages workers in unions have over nonunionized workers. Workers with strong unions have been able to set industry standards for wages and benefits that help all workers, both union and nonunion (Rhinehart and McNicholas 2020). Never in recent history has this dynamic been more clear. Never has it been more important that all workers have a voice in the workplace and access to a union. Workers’ lives and the health and safety of working families depends on their ability to have a say in how they do their jobs.

https://www.epi.org/publication/why-unions-are-good-for-workers-especially-in-a-crisis-like-covid-19-12-policies-that-would-boost-worker-rights-safety-and-wages/

[hotrod0808]

1. Tomorrow

in response to the concessions that my company has gone to bankruptcy court to enforce upon us, we are voting whether to strike or not. My company paid out millions to executives, wasted resources on machines that didn't save money (which we told them would happen), brought outsiders with no knowledge of making glass to run a glass plant, and several other tings they did that I have forgotten. They are already closing one profitable plant in Louisiana because it is union while keeping the money losing plants in China and Mexico open.

I feel like this will be my last Labor Day as a member of this local and this union. This company will not hesitate to close their flagship plant, and they have threatened so numerous times. Now, I have experience, and education, and a fistful of qualifications, but I like what I do and don't want to start over..yet again. All I know is that we all know that unions make the world better. The company knows it, because union plants are their only profitable plants. Yet, their contempt for workers and their rights will lead them to sut off their noses to spite their faces.