White House releases labor report seeking to boost union membership
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[February 07, 2022]
By Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on
Monday released a highly anticipated report from its labor task force
that includes nearly 70 recommendations on how the government can help
workers join labor unions and bargain collectively.
These include the government offering greater access to the federal
workforce for unions seeking to build membership, and pushing agencies
such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Labor
Relations Authority to work closely together to facilitate worker
organizing.
The 43-page report also pushes the Labor Department to ensure workers,
who allege retaliation when engaged in organizing, receive full
protection and prevent the misclassification of workers as independent
contractors - a long-running battle with so-called "gig economy"
workers.
President Joe Biden established the task force in April with the goal of
facilitating worker organizing and reversing a decades-long decline in
union membership. He appointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the chair
of the task force and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh as vice chair of the
group, which also includes over 20 heads of agencies and cabinet
officials.
Union support was important to Biden's victory in several Rust Belt
states in 2020, and those voters' choices in 2022 will play a key role
in the midterm elections.
Only 10.3% of the U.S. workforce was represented by a union in 2021,
down from more than 30% in the 1950s, the White House says. The numbers
are even lower for private-sector employees, where union membership has
fallen to 6.1% in 2021 from 16.8% in 1983.
"This report is going to do some good things for workers in America,"
U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters in an interview.
Harris and Walsh, who held more than two dozen meetings with
stakeholders around the country, met Biden on Friday to discuss the
report, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
During the meeting, Walsh said Biden and Harris were focused on "what's
the follow-up going to be, so it's not just the paper documents." They
discussed "coming up with a system" that helps report progress, he said.
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President Joe Biden applauds Cranita Jordan, a 4th year apprentice
at Ironworkers Local 5, after she addressed the crowd gathered to
see the president sign an executive order on federal construction
project contracts and labor agreements during a visit to Ironworkers
Local 5 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, U.S., February 4, 2022.
REUTERS/Leah Millis
The task force will submit a second
report in six months, which will describe progress in
implementation, he said.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, which comprises 57 affiliated
unions and 12.5 million workers, told Reuters the U.S. labor
movement will "be the eyes and ears on the ground," making sure the
report gets implemented.
"I think this could be a game changer, to have the power of the
federal government examining itself and how its practices can be
utilized to advance worker organizing," she said.
Biden's administration may be the most overtly pro-union since Harry
Truman left the Oval Office nearly 70 years ago, labor leaders and
outside analysts have said, citing actions that have put unions at
the center of policy. Biden has rarely missed a chance to highlight
his interest in bolstering the U.S. labor movement, including
through a slew of provisions in his legislative initiatives.
The White House report does not state how much union membership has
risen since Biden took office but says the pandemic has boosted
union approval. Sixty eight percent of Americans currently approve
of labor unions — the highest level since 1965.
Unions have lobbied for the passage of the Protecting the Right to
Organize Act, or PRO Act, which would prohibit employers from
holding mandatory anti-union meetings and impose financial penalties
for violating workers' labor rights. The House passed the measure in
March and Biden supports the legislation, but it faces long odds in
the Senate.
"It is important to acknowledge that the task force recommendations
do not and cannot take the place of the robust legislative change
that is needed to fix our labor laws," the report said.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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