Details:

It was the trade union movement that built the middle class in this country, and it is the trade union movement that is going to rebuild the middle class in America once again. There is no doubt that union membership is good for workers: union workers earn 22 percent more, on average, than non-union workers. In America today, 72 percent of union workers have a defined benefit pension plan that guarantees an income in retirement compared to just 14 percent of non-union workers.  Union workers are also half as likely to be victims of health and safety violations or of wage theft and 18 percent more likely to have health coverage.

Declining unionization has fueled rising inequality. Today, corporate profits are at an all-time high, while wages as a percentage of the economy are near an all-time low. The middle class is disappearing, and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider. 

There are many reasons for the growing inequality in our economy, but one of the most significant reasons for the disappearing middle class is that the rights of workers to join together and bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions have been severely undermined. 

If workers had ownership stakes in their companies and an equal say on corporate boards:

• Corporations would be far less likely to shut down profitable factories in the United States and move abroad;

• CEOs would not be making over 300 times as much as their average workers, and

• Companies would be far less likely to pollute the communities in which workers live.

KEY POINTS:

• Eliminate “Right to Work for Less” laws and guarantee the right to unionize for workers historically excluded from labor protections, like farm workers and domestic workers.

• Guarantee paid time off nationwide! The United States is the only major nation in the world that does not guarantee paid time off (vacation/holiday days) when most of the developed world guarantees at least 20 days!

• Democratize corporate boards with worker-elected representatives. We need to push for workers to be represented by at least 45% of the board of directors in any large corporation with at least $100 million in annual revenue, corporations with at least $100 million in balance sheet total, and all publicly traded companies will be directly elected by the firm’s workers.

• Give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for.

• Break up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies, including reviewing all mergers that have taken place during the Trump administration and instituting new merger guidelines

• Deny federal contracts to companies that pay poverty wages, outsource jobs overseas, engage in union-busting, deny good benefits, and pay CEOs outrageous compensation packages

• Provide unions the ability to organize through a majority sign up process and enact “first contract” provisions to ensure companies cannot prevent a union from forming by denying a first contract.