Every time we go to the gas station or supermarket, we are reminded that prices are on the rise as inflation takes a bigger chunk out of our paychecks. The inflation rates are the highest they have been since the early 1980s. Inflation is not only a problem in our country as prices are rising all around the globe. The U.S. inflation rate has almost quadrupled over the past two years, but in many countries, it has risen even faster. Per Pew Research Center reports, “annual U.S. inflation in the first quarter of this year averaged just below 8.0% — the 13th-highest rate among the ...
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As we head full swing into the 2020 Presidential Election year, let’s take a hard look at how the men and women of the United States labor force have fared under this administration. Social Security in danger of cuts: Federal worker pensions have been targeted to offset deficit-inflating tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans. Social Security benefit rules are changing to encourage workers to retire later, meaning an aging workforce with increased medical needs. Many employers are increasing retiree costs for health care or phasing out coverage altogether. Medicare isn’t available until age 65 and doesn’t cover all medical ...
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“Over the past several decades, corporate driven trade deals and tax laws with anti-labor incentives have rewarded companies that abandoned U.S. workers and communities. This has resulted in millions of good manufacturing jobs being shipped overseas to countries that trample workers’ rights, suppress workers’ wages and diminish dignity on the job. China is one of those countries – and as you would assume, over this time, our trade deficit with China has exploded. Between 2001 and 2018, the U.S. trade deficit in goods grew over 500%, to over $400 billion in in 2018. According to the Economic Policy Institute, trade with China over ...
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“Today’s General Motors profit sharing, established under the 2015 contract negotiations, recognizes that UAW GM members’ hard work is an essential part of General Motors sales and profits. UAW members at GM negotiated a well-deserved share in the profits of their hard work and sacrifice.”
In the new report, Union decline lowers wages of nonunion workers: The overlooked reason why wages are stuck and inequality is growing, Washington University sociologist Jake Rosenfeld and co-authors find that the dramatic decline in union density since 1979 has resulted in far lower wages for nonunion workers, an impact larger than the 5 percent effect of globalization on their wages found in recent research. Specifically, nonunion men lacking a college degree would have earned 8 percent, or $3,016 annually, more in 2013 if unions had remained as strong as they were in 1979. Between 1979 and 2013, the share ...
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Berkeley — Just over a third of non-supervisory manufacturing production workers in the United States and half of the nation’s manufacturing workers hired through temporary agencies rely on at least one public assistance program to support themselves or their families, according to research by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education. As presidential candidates from both parties debate how to revive American manufacturing, and while lawmakers at the federal and state levels promote subsidies to lure manufacturing jobs, the Labor Center calculates that low wages in manufacturing cost taxpayers approximately $10.2 billion a year in public ...
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Berkeley — Just over a third of non-supervisory manufacturing production workers in the United States and half of the nation’s manufacturing workers hired through temporary agencies rely on at least one public assistance program to support themselves or their families, according to research by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education. As presidential candidates from both parties debate how to revive American manufacturing, and while lawmakers at the federal and state levels promote subsidies to lure manufacturing jobs, the Labor Center calculates that low wages in manufacturing cost taxpayers approximately $10.2 billion a year in public ...
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Pattern bargaining started as a collective bargaining strategy in which unionized workers across an industry or sector attempt to bargain uniform standards in their contracts. UAW autoworkers started this practice right after World War II, and by 1955, the UAW contracts with the major automakers set the same pattern wages and had the same contract expiration date. Pattern bargaining serves an important purpose: it levels the playing field so companies compete based on the quality of their products or services not how much they pay (or don’t pay) their workers. This was the vision of Walter Reuther, who wanted to ...
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