VIDEO: Here's what some will do for paid family leave

The U.S. maybe know as the Land of Opportunity, but it fails to provide many basic necessities to its workers that other nations around the world make available. 

Chief among those is paid family leave, which the Teamsters and other advocates have stood up for in the past as a necessary provision to help female and male providers better provide for their families. Currently, 87 percent of Americans don't receive any, and thus are left in a real conundrum when they have children.

Last month, the Economic Policy Institute introduced a 12-point policy for making women's lives better, and paid leave was part of it. Now, some in Hollywood and in the entertainment industry are joining in to demand it as well.

As the video above shows, their message isn't subtle. But hopefully it will be effective in bringing more dignity to workers.

U.S. kids are watched by people in poverty

The availability of child care is often identified as essential to ensuring that more adults can enter the workforce. But in many places, the service is unaffordable for everyday Americans. And that includes those working in the field itself.

Some child care teachers are taking a stand for fair wages.

A report released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) this month found that the median hourly wage for child care workers is $10.31 a hour, nearly 40 percent lower than workers in other occupations. Most of the 1.2 million nearly-all female workers in the field don't receive health insurance or other benefits either.

Elise Gould, EPI's senior economist, said that leaves a lot of workers in the lurch:

While child care is a large expense, it's not because child care workers are overpaid. Despite the critical role they play in the economy, child care workers are some of the lowest-paid workers in the country. We need a bold solution to improve the working conditions of child care workers and make child care accessible at the same time.

As it stands, in 32 states and the District of Columbia, center-based infant care costs are equal to more than a third of a typical preschool worker's earnings. And in 21 states and D.C., non-preschool child care workers would have to spend over half of their annual earnings to pay for center-based infant care.

This is yet another example of the failing American economy. Child
care workers play a necessary role that benefits the entire U.S., but they don't make a wage themselves that allows them to provide for themselves or their families.

Lawmakers need to craft solutions that benefit workers. This nation needs to find a way to allow parents to pursue employment outside the home while paying people a fair wage to engage with our greatest resource -- out future generations.

Making public sector jobs RTW will gut wages

Public-sector employees have become a punching bag for anti-union forces who are trying to cripple the movement. But with the U.S. Supreme Court getting ready to consider a lawsuit that could allow workers to opt-out of paying union dues while still receiving representation, a new report shows just how much value union membership brings to workers' paychecks.

The Economic Policy Institute unveiled a document showing that if the court was to effectively institute so-called "right to work" for public sector jobs across the country, wages would likely fall far below what those in the private sector earn for the same work. Thus, if the court was to side with the plaintiffs in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, millions of workers would be hurt.

Jeffrey Keefe, a professor at Rutgers University who authored the report, says instituting a policy that would reduce wages makes no sense, taking a step that would worsen income inequality:

When states provide full collective-bargaining rights and permit the enforcement of provisions that allow unions to collect dues from all employees they represent, regardless of membership, unions can lessen and even eliminate this gap. This makes it possible for state and local governments to attract workers that might otherwise go to the private sector.

The Teamsters represent about 273,000 public sector workers, and other unions represent millions more. These government employees are everyday Americans just trying to earn a living and support their families. But that will be increasingly difficult if union rights are curtailed nationwide.

Sticking up for union jobs is essential because it paves the way to a middle-class lifestyle. The median union worker makes more than $200 more a week than non-union workers. That's why the Teamsters stressed the need for more union jobs in its "Let's Get America Working" campaign. Workers earning more doesn't just help their families, it helps the economy at large as well because they spend more.

Teamster Strong, America Stronger!

Corporations holding onto more of their profits

Everyday Americans continue to struggle to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads and pay the bills. As has been stated repeatedly in this space, part of the problem is the thousands-upon-thousands of jobs that have been shipped overseas due to lousy trade deals. In return, displaced workers are forced to accept low-wage employment, making it nearly impossible to make ends meet.

But that's not the entire story. Evidently, it seems corporations have been holding out on their employees. A new Economic Policy Institute report finds that less company income is going to pay workers in the last 15 years: 

Between 2000 and the second quarter of 2015, the share of income generated by corporations that went to workers’ wages (instead of going to capital incomes like profits) declined from 82.3 percent to 75.5 percent, as the figure shows. This 6.8 percentage-point decline in labor’s share of corporate income might not seem like a lot, but if labor’s share had not fallen this much, employees in the corporate sector would have $535 billion more in their paychecks today. If this amount was spread over the entire labor force (not just corporate sector employees) this would translate into a $3,770 raise for each worker.

How is this right or just at a time when many are slipping out of the middle class even as they work full-time or in some cases multiple jobs? What is shows, unfortunately, is the outsized role that big business' campaign cash plays in the policy-making process.

Workers deserve dignity and respect in the workplace, and the chance to earn a fair wage for an honest days work. That is happening less and less, unfortunately. Which is why the Teamsters rolled out a platform earlier this month called "Let's Get America Working" that addresses the needs of creating better paying jobs and protecting workers in the job, among other things.

The U.S. cannot afford to leave the majority of its citizens behind. But that's what is happening right now. Only when a bipartisan majority of lawmakers come together to challenge corporate America and ensure that more good jobs are made available will that change.

Trade deficits, job losses are more reasons to fear TPP

Bad trades deals have a real cost to regular Americans. And a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis makes it clear what that is -- jobs.

The huge U.S. trade deficit, especially in manufactured goods, led to the loss of all 5 million U.S. factory jobs that have disappeared since 2000, EPI stated. Analyst Robert Scott’s issue paper adds productivity gains in factories were responsible for virtually none of the losses, counter to many prevailing
economists’ claims.

U.S. factories lost just over 5 million jobs since 2000, when factories employed upwards of 18 million people. They fell to 11.5 million during the Great Recession, and recovered 800,000 jobs since. But productivity rose at least 3.7 percent yearly through 2007, and 1.7 percent since then. The reason for so small a factory recovery is the trade deficit, Scott says.

The leading cause of growing U.S. trade deficits is currency manipulation, which distorts trade flows by artificially lowering the cost of imports and raising the cost of exports. More than 20 countries, led by China, have been spending about $1 trillion per year buying foreign assets to artificially suppress the value of their currencies. Ending currency manipulation can create between 2.3 million and 5.8 million jobs for working Americans, and about 40 percent of those jobs -- between 891,500 and 2.3 million -- would be in manufacturing.

As the analysis explains:

A rising trade deficit indicates that U.S. manufacturers are losing business to manufacturing industries in other countries like China and Japan, who manipulate their currency to make their goods cheaper and therefore more appealing to consumers in the United States and elsewhere. This leads to reduced demand for goods produced by U.S. manufacturers, both at home and abroad.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa went further into the potential damages currency manipulation could wrought on American workers in a piece he authored this week. With the Trans-Pacific Partnership still looming, concerns about future job lost maybe even more important than those from the past.

• Press Associates, Inc. contributed to this report.

EPI report shows no CEOs are left behind

There is a lot of talk about the top one percent from some elected officials, political candidates and in the media. But what does that exactly mean? Fat checks for top corporate executives, that's what!

A new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes that since 1978, CEO pay has grown 90 times faster than that of rank-and-file workers. So while CEO compensation went from $1.5 million to $16.3 million, the average private-sector production and non-supervisory worker (which is 82 percent of the workforce) rose from $48,000 to only $53,200 in 2014. As a result, the top CEOs now make more than 300 times what typical workers earn.

As EPI states:

Although corporations are posting record-high profits and the stock market is booming, the wages of most workers remain stagnant, indicating they are not participating equally in prosperity. Meanwhile, CEO compensation continues to rise even faster than the stock market. 

In order to curtail the growth of CEO pay, we need to implement higher marginal income tax rates and promote rules such as “say on pay.” At the same time, we need to implement an agenda that promotes broad-based wage growth so typical workers can share more widely in our economic growth.

America finds itself where it is because of corporate greed. Sky-high salaries with golden parachutes for executives have become the norm. Meanwhile, more and more hard-working Americans are being forced into low-wage jobs because of bad trade deals moving middle-class jobs overseas.

There is one thing that could help overcome this yawning income gap -- unions. A look back in U.S. history shows our greatest economic period, the 1950s, was during a time when union membership was at its highest. Even the International Monetary Fund agrees more labor membership would help workers.

As a recent Business Insider article states, the U.S. needs to find a solution to an economy that looks good on paper but when looked at more closely is hammering workers:

Organizing may not be the only solution to income inequality. But it's a big one, and it could move the economy in the right direction.

Amen.

Report: Misclassification is a significant problem for workers

Employee misclassification is not a well-known issue for most people. But with millions of workers teetering on the edge of the U.S. economy, that is changing. And luckily, the Teamsters and other groups are here taking a stand to end the practice also known as wage theft.

A recent Economic Policy Institute report sums up the full size of the problem. Upwards of 20 percent of employers misclassify at least one worker as an independent contractor. Many of these workers are in the trucking and construction industries, but the problem is growing in other sectors as well. While the employer saves on paying taxes and social security as well by not providing health insurance for such workers, the public is left on the hook to support these people if they are injured on the job.

Francoise Carre, the document's author and the research director for the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said unscrupulous employers engage in misclassification to avoid employment-related obligations:

Misclassification is one way in which employers deprive workers of the ability to bargain over wages and working conditions. It is a troubling and understudied trend and seems to be on the rise. The growth of the "sharing economy," which mostly treats on-demand workers as self-employed, further highlights the need for clarity on employee status.

In recent years, the Teamsters have been actively involved in fighting such issues, both for port truck drivers at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as well as with food processors working at places such as Taylor Farms in California's Central Valley. And the union is winning.

Meanwhile, states are beginning to catch onto the scam. The GOP-controlled Georgia Legislature, for instance, is investigating whether companies in that state deliberately misclassify employees as part time or contractors in order to avoid paying minimum wage or payroll taxes.

Companies that engage in misclassification are not paying their fair share. The Teamsters believe that workers should be treated fairly, that the letter and spirit of employment law should be upheld, and that deliberate violations of employment law should be punished to the fullest extent possible.

Workers in RTW states make $1,558 a year less

Earlier this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law so-called "right-to-work" (RTW) legislation that curbs collective bargaining rights. And a new report makes it clear how much it will cost workers there and in other RTW states.

Teamsters helped defeat RTW in West Virginia earlier this year.

An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) document notes that wages are 3.1 percent lower in states that impede union rights than they are in free bargaining ones. That's after taking cost of living, demographics and labor market characteristics into account. The result is that union and non-union workers alike in RTW states make $1,558 less each year.

Will Kimball, the report's co-author and an EPI research assistant, says in a press release:

Policymakers who are concerned by the three-and-a-half decades of wage stagnation that have plagued American workers should be trying to strengthen unions. Collective bargaining is a clear way to raise wages, and right to work laws undercut it.

In addition, those living in RTW-for-less states are less likely to have employee-sponsored health insurance or pension coverage. They have fewer workplace protections, which on Worker's Memorial Day, we should all recognize is not a good thing for the a person's health or safety. In short, they are getting screwed.

It's time for elected officials to see through the ruse that is right-to-work. 

ALEC's latest attack in Mo. deceives and silences workers

Look carefully at the "paycheck protection" bills passed this week by the Missouri Legislature. You'll see ALEC's fingerprints slathered all over them. These bills are part of the Koch group’s continuing effort to muscle the working class out of politics and government.

The passage of SB 29 and HB 64 threatens to destroy workers' ability to donate to candidates and causes as a group. Employers would be unaffected.  If the bills are enacted, unions couldn't make political donations. But guess who could: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its powerful friends such as the Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

The legislation is part of ALEC's continuing effort to shift policymaking away from the people and put it in the hands of employers, according to an Economic Policy Institute report released this week,  Gordon Lafer, a University of Oregon professor who authored the report, said this about the legislation:

The argument advanced in Missouri and elsewhere is that it will save workers money … and expand workers’ rights. Neither of these bills extend new rights to employees that Missouri law already doesn’t allow.

Professor Lafer said the arguments for this legislation are baseless. For example, the bills state that union workers shouldn’t have to pay dues to support political candidates they oppose. However, union workers already can opt out of paying a portion of their dues allocated for political spending. Meanwhile, corporations can use monies they receive to lobby for whatever cause or candidate they support.

The measures also would require workers to fill out paperwork each year affirming their approval to have part of their dues used for political purposes. Unions, in turn, would have to devote sparse resources toward making sure their members comply with the burdensome law.

Professor Lafer said the legislation would create two different sets of laws, one for workers and another for employers. He said:

It is important to note that ALEC and the Chamber and other organizations have opposed similar obligations being placed on corporations.

Our brothers and sisters in Missouri should contact the office of Gov. Jay Nixon and tell him to veto this deceptive legislation.