Taskforce boosts unions in US

A taskforce chaired by US vice president Kamala Harris has made 70 policy recommendations to the president to foster unionisation of federal government staff and contractors.

In stark contrast to the previous Trump administration, the taskforce was established by President Biden to identify policies, practices and programmes “to promote my Administration’s policy of support for worker power, worker organizing, and collective bargaining”. The report sets out how a decades-long drop in union membership has coincided with a rising share of income going to the top 10% of earners in the US.

It also provides evidence of the increasing popularity of unions. It says that “public approval of unions as tracked by Gallup has reached its highest point since 1965, with 68% of Americans approving of labor unions”.

And it points out that 52% of non-union members would now vote for a union at their job if an election were held today, compared with around a third in the 1990s.

The recommendations include actions to make the federal government itself a model employer, increase workers’ awareness of labour rights and promote collective bargaining.

They also include ensuring effective implementation of existing laws and developing research and data “to advance policy about worker organizing and empowerment”.

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/newsreleases/2022/02/OSEC20220195.pdf