Committee Releases New Report Highlighting Union Membership Impact on Country’s Economic Stability
“Stronger Together: How Unions Help Strengthen Families and the Nation” includes data-driven analysis, worker stories
WASHINGTON – The Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Democratic Staff – led by Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) – has released a new report entitled Stronger Together: How Unions Help Strengthen Families and the Nation. The report makes a renewed case that unions are essential to restoring the American Dream for millions of hardworking people in our country. The report provides data-driven analysis and union members’ individual accounts of how unions make it possible for working people, their families, and whole communities to live a better life.
Ranking Member Scott unveiled the report this morning on a conference call with Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute, Elizabeth Bunn, Director of Organizing for the AFL-CIO, and Allysha Almada, a registered nurse from California who was fired for trying to organize a union at her former hospital.
“Our agenda in Congress should be geared toward making it easier for working people to form unions and join the middle class,” said Ranking Member Scott. “But instead of strengthening workers’ ability to come together to improve their wages and working conditions, many Republican federal and state lawmakers do just the opposite. As a consequence of this anti-union movement, the report shows that the percentage of workers in unions has declined and wages have remained almost stagnant, while productivity continues to increase. Workers no longer share in the growth of our economy, and income and wealth inequality is one of the most pressing problems facing our nation.”
The report shows that between 1948 and 1973, productivity and compensation grew at nearly equal rates. But from 1973 to 2014, American workers’ productivity grew by 72 percent, while hourly worker compensation grew by just 9 percent. In the 1970s, the American economy began to shift from one in which the rising tide of economic growth lifted all boats, to one in which the rich were getting richer while the rest of Americans were struggling to make ends meet.
Lawrence Mishel, an economist and the President of the Economic Policy Institute, has been at the forefront of this research for decades.
“The report is a timely and well done resource. It presents both the relevant facts and the voices of workers telling their important stories,” said Mishel. “Americans are more productive, and with more education, than ever, but their hourly pay is treading water, as an enormous and ever-increasing share of income growth goes to corporate profits and executive pay. This is a solvable problem. To generate robust wage growth we need to facilitate workers’ ability to organize and bargain collectively to improve wages and working conditions.”
The research in the report shows that when employees organize and negotiate as part of a union, they earn higher wages than their non-union counterparts. On average, unionized workers earn $207 more per week than non-unionized workers. Unionized workers also have more access to paid holidays, paid sick leave, life insurance, medical and retirement benefits than those workers who are not unionized. They also are far more likely than non-union workers to have access to health insurance, retirement benefits, paid sick leave, and reliable schedules.
This is why Allysha Almada – whose story is one that is highlighted in the report – fought to organize her coworkers.
“I started working with my coworkers to try to get a union -- so we could all have a voice,” said Almada. “Right away, the hospital started holding mandatory meetings we all had to attend, spreading lies and fear about the union. I decided to go to union rallies and speak out. The story of our efforts to get a union and our photos were printed in several local newspapers. My photo was even on a bus ad that ran throughout Los Angeles for a month! As part of that effort, I spoke at a union rally in July and was the only Huntington nurse quoted in the local newspaper. Less than a week later, I got suspended from the hospital, and a couple of weeks after that, I was fired along with another co-worker who supported the union. Now we’re both out of a job.”
All across the country, workers like Alamada are getting fired illegally when they try to organize to make their workplaces and their communities better. In fact, an analysis of illegal employer conduct during union organizing campaigns found that and 34 percent fire at least one employee in retaliation for organizing, 47 percent of employers threaten cuts in benefits or wages if their employees join a union, and 57 percent threaten to close the facility. And today, three out of four employers hire a union avoidance consultant when they hear that workers are trying to organize.
The report also documents that unions are not only good for workers; they are also good for business. Union membership reduces employee turnover because fewer employees quit their jobs, which leads to a more experienced and skilled workforce. With a more stable workforce, unionized employers have greater incentives to provide training to their employees.
“I will continue to call on my colleagues in Congress to once again make it possible for more workers to come together to organize and form a union - because we know, when working people do better, families do better, our economy does better, and our nation does better,” said Ranking Member Scott. “We must take the steps to make it possible for more Americans to bargain for their fair share, and this report provides a road map for us to do just that.”
Read the executive summary of the report here.
Read the full report here.
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