Tax day doesn’t sting much if you live at the gilded edge, according
to new data on how the top one-hundredth of one percent and the top
one-thousandth of a percent of all filers pay their income taxes. People
who make tens of millions of dollars enjoyed falling income tax rates
and ballooning wealth for a decade as middle-class taxpayers floundered.
TEN WAYS TO MAKE THE ECONOMY WORK FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW: #7, STRENGTHEN UNIONS AND PREEMPT STATE “RIGHT-TO-WORK” LAWS
One big reason America was far more equal in the 1950s and 1960s than
now is unions were stronger then. That gave workers bargaining power to get a fair share of the economy’s gains – and unions helped improve wages and working
conditions for everyone.
But as union membership has weakened – from more than a third of all
private-sector workers belonging unions in the 1950s to fewer than 7 percent
today – the bargaining power of average workers has all but disappeared.
In fact, the decline of the American middle class mirrors almost exactly the decline of American labor union membership.
So how do we strengthen unions?
First, make it easier to form a union, with a simple majority of
workers voting up or down.
Right now, long delays and procedural hurdles give
big employers plenty of time to whip up campaigns against unions, even
threatening they’ll close down and move somewhere else if a union is voted in.
Second, build in real penalties on companies that violate labor laws
by firing workers who try to organize a union or intimidating others.
These
moves are illegal, but nowadays the worst that can happen is employers get
slapped on the wrist. If found guilty they have to repay lost wages to the
workers they fire. Some employers treat this as a cost of doing business. That must be stopped. Penalties should be large enough to stop this illegality.
Finally – this one has been in the news lately, and if you only
remember one thing, remember this: We must enact a federal law that pre-empts
so-called state “right-to-work” laws.
Don’t be fooled by the “right to work” name. These laws
allow workers to get all the benefits of having a union without paying union
dues. It’s a back door destroying unions. If no one pays dues, unions have no
way to provide any union benefits. And that means lower wages.
In fact, wages in right-to-work states are lower
on average than wages in non-right-to-work states, by an average of about $1500
a year. Workers in right-to-work states are also less likely to have
employer-sponsored health insurance and pension coverage.
When unions are
weakened by right-to-work laws, all of a state’s workers are hurt.
American workers need a union to bargain on their behalf. Low-wage
workers in big-box retail stores and fast-food chains need a union even more.
If
we want average Americans to get a fair share of the gains from economic
growth, they need to be able to unionize.
Student debt carries inequity far past graduation The fact that student debt continues to soar is troubling enough. Now there is clear evidence, from our friends at Demos, that it also deepens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. “The Debt Divide: The Racial and Class Bias Behind the ‘New Normal’ of Student Borrowing” describes the impact of near-universal reliance on student loans: They saddle the people who need them most with crippling debt, while others, who are debt-free, are free to thrive. As the charts show, the impact is even greater on black and low-income students. Read more about the report.
The latest installment in the “10 Ideas to Save the Economy” video series from Robert Reich and MoveOn focuses on reinventing education. As Reich notes, “Our broken education system is squashing passion for learning, eroding the love of teaching and grinding up generations of young people.” Share the video.
Thanks to two well-trained, quick-thinking AFT members, 18 schoolchildren in Florida were able to safely escape their bus when the engine burst into flames. Driver Augustus Simpson and monitor Dorothy Manning, both members of the
Orange Education Support Professionals Association in Orlando,
evacuated the bus of preschool through fifth-grade students within
minutes. (They are pictured with local union president Damary Mercado.) Read the full story.
The latest “State of Preschool” report from the National Institute for Early Education Research shows some incremental progress in enrollment growth for public pre-kindergarten programs. But, as AFT President Randi Weingarten points out, at the current rate, it would take 150 years for publicly funded pre-K programs to reach 70 percent of 4-year-olds. The map above shows current enrollment rates. Read the AFT’s full statement on the report.
As this chart from the Economic Policy Institute shows, at its current level, the U.S. minimum wage ranks us near the bottom when you look at how the minimum in other countries compares to the median wage. Raising it to $12 would move us from 27th place up to 11th—progress, but still not enough. Read more.
Jeb Bush seems to be a little confused about which “solutions” actually
help schools. Since he doesn’t seem to understand the results of his own
policies, we thought we’d put together a little video to help him.
Best buddies in the AFT “Skimpy and Scampi.” It’s like a buddy movie, but not terrible. That’s the story of PSRP leaders Wayne Scott of Colorado and George Williams of Florida, whose deep friendship epitomizes what it means to have a “first friend, best friend” in the AFT. Scott is a school bus driver, Williams a school custodian. Both are national experts on school transportation and longtime members of the AFT PSRP program and policy council, which made them what they are: “Skimpy and Scampi,” Scott for his stature and Williams for his love of shrimp. Read more about their story.
The AFT is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are...