Which Of The 2020 Candidates Is A Friend Of The Workers? with Shaun Richman, Program Dir. of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies at SUNY Empire State College.
. Wage growth is weak for a tight labor marketâand the pace of wage growth is uneven across race and gender. . Wage growth is being held back by political decisions and the Trump administration is on the wrong side of key debates. . Working people have been thwarted in their efforts to bargain for better wages by attacks on unions. . Low-wage workers are suffering from a decline in the real value of the federal minimum wage. . Black workers endure persistent racial disparities in employment outcomes. . Employers increase their profits and put downward pressure on wages and labor standards by exploiting migrant workers
Together, these dilemmas underscore that we must understand and address many factorsâincluding the dynamics of gender, race, and immigrationâwhen crafting policies to give all workers a fair shot at achieving faster wage growth and greater opportunity.
Moreover, U.S. employers are willing to use a wide range of legal and illegal tactics to frustrate the rights of workers to form unions and collectively bargaining. Employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns. And one out of five union election campaigns involves a charge that a worker was illegally fired for union activity. While this outrage has persisted for years under Democratic and Republican Administrations, it has reached new depths under Trump.
Within this context weâll talk about what the top Democratic Party contenders for the presidency are proposing to better the âstate of the stateâ of working men and women, as they ready themselves for the Iowa caucuses. Weâll also discuss who supports and the likelihood of the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which is scheduled to be introduced in the House of Representative in early February.
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
please notify us if you plan to broadcast this program - knash@igc.org
![<?php echo $config['site_title']; ?>](/static/images/rp-navimg.gif)
![Support the <?php echo $config['site_title']; ?>](/static/images/support.png)
