Join the BlueGreen Alliance
Help us identify ways to turn today’s environmental challenges into job-creating and economic opportunities!When unions are strong, local economies prosper, workers are safer and healthier, and our environment is safeguarded.
The Challenge
The United States was built on the backs of workers across every industry. Only when those workers organized and practiced their right to form unions did we see the middle-class flourish in our country. Now, due to decades of slowly chipping away existing labor law, our country is left with an insufficient patchwork of legislation protecting workers and their families.
For as long as unionization has been around, so has union busting. In the United States, workers in most industries have faced wage stagnation, increasingly difficult and dangerous working conditions, and a wholesale effort to decimate their ability to organize for the past several decades. Our labor laws have been made toothless, and employers are brazenly exploiting workers. To make matters worse, there are no meaningful penalties for corporations that use illegal tactics to stop workers from exercising their right to organize. Issues of worker misclassification and wage theft, poor worker health and safety oversight, and other challenges have become commonplace in every sector of the economy. Workers’ rights and empowerment on the job must be protected and expanded.
The Opportunity
When unions are strong, local economies prosper, workers are safer and healthier, and our environment is safeguarded. That’s due to the power of the collective bargaining process. Through the collective bargaining process, workers represented by a union negotiate with their employer the terms of their employment. This includes wages, benefits, hours, health and safety requirements, and more. Research has shown that through the collective bargaining power of unions, workers are able to get more and better benefits—such as health insurance and pensions—and are able to fight for better enforcement of the labor protections they have a right to under the law, like enforcement of safety and health regulations and overtime.
Additionally, collective bargaining is one of the most powerful tools to consistently and comprehensively raise standards for any industry regularly, as each renegotiated collective bargaining agreement typically includes gains for the workers. Moreover, research has shown that across the board, union members earn higher wages than non-union workers.
However, due to decades of union busting and so-called “right to work” laws, workers face difficulties in organizing their workplaces. A proposed congressional bill would help ensure that workers are able to practice their right to organize. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act ends prohibitions on collective and class action litigation, prohibits employers from permanently replacing striking employees, ends the misclassification of workers as independent contractors, and more.
Key Facts
11.2% On average, union workers’ wages are 11.2% higher than non-union workers. (Source)
96% 96% of workers covered by a union contract have access to employer-sponsored health benefits, compared with just 69% of non-union workers. (Source)
15.2% On average, workers in states with so-called “right to work” laws make 15.2% less annually than workers in other states. (Source)