Report: Unions essential for rebuilding U.S. middle class

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4832

By James Parks
4 April 2011

WASHINGTON - We know it. Now yet another study proves it: Unions are essential for building a strong middle class -- and rebuilding the middle class is key to restoring the U.S. economy.

“Unions Make the Middle Class,” released Monday by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, points out that unions make the middle class by ensuring workers have a strong voice in both the workplace and in our democracy. The study found when unions are strong they are able to ensure that workers are paid fair wages, receive the training they need to advance to the middle class, and are considered in corporate decision-making processes.

Unions also promote political participation among all Americans, and help workers secure government policies that support the middle class, such as Social Security, family leave, and the minimum wage.

Across the globe, the countries with the strongest middle classes all have strong union movements. In this country, the states with higher concentrations of union members have a much stronger middle class. The 10 states with the lowest percentage of workers in unions all have a relatively weak middle class, the report says. In fact, each percentage point increase in union membership puts about $153 more per year into the pockets of the middle class, the report found.

Yet, over the past four decades, union membership has declined as business and its political allies changed the legal and political environment to prevent private-sector workers from freely exercising their right to join a union. Now, some governors are trying to do the same thing to public employees.

FULL story at link.

[OHdem10]

1. Everyone should be aware of this message.

It was the Unions and FDRs Polkicies including the
NEW DEAL that built the real Middle Class in our
Country.

There has been and continues to be a direct assault
on both. Think about it.

[RKP5637]

4. +1000 +++ n/t

[uberblonde]

2. Ah, there's that assumption!

You're assuming they want to rebuild the middle class. Corporations want cheap, disposable labor. Who do you think wins?

[QED]

5. You're so right. Who needs a middle class?

The corporations want high unemployment and pliable docile workers who are too afraid to protest for fear of being fired and then finding another job.

[RKP5637]

3. IMO unions are "mandatory" for building a strong middle class. Moreover, unions

provide a bonding of the middle class. Now, I was never in a union, I was in management and I was damn glad unions existed because I knew full well every benefit I had had been fought for and won by the unions.

I'm old enough to have lived through the union struggles and fight for fair representation. What we have today is a lack of generational knowledge of the history of unions and how important they were and are now for the success of a strong middle class. So, people not in unions today take their rights for granted, but they need to realize what drove the creation of the rights they enjoy today.

[safeinOhio]

6. A rising tide of union wages

raises all ships.