By Richard Freeman, Eunice Han, Brendan Duke, David Madland

– Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association—a case that could further erode union coverage. Now, new economic research from the Center for American Progress strongly suggests that one-third of the decline in the share of middle class workers is directly tied to the decreasing share of workers in unions.

The analysis breaks down the falling share of middle-class workers into three factors associated with unions—the decline in the share of workers in unions, known as union coverage; a decline in the share of union workers who are middle class relative to nonunion workers, known as the union equality effect; and the interaction between the decline in union coverage and the union equality effect. By using an economic technique known as a shift-share decomposition, the research finds a decline in union coverage accounting for 35 percent of the falling share of middle-class workers and that the combination of the shrinking share of union workers and the reduction in the union equality effect explains almost half of the decline in middle-class workers.

The United States has long called itself a middle-class nation. But that statement is less true today than it was 30 years ago.

The most widely used barometer of the financial health of the middle class—real median household income as published by the U.S. Census Bureau—has barely grown over the last thirty years. At the same time, the middle class has been hollowed out as incomes have polarized, with more households at the top and the bottom and fewer in the middle of the income distribution. A recent report by the Pew Research Center showed that the share of adults in the middle class—defined as adults whose households make between 67 percent and 200 percent of median U.S. income—fell from 61 percent in 1971 to just 50 percent in 2014.

Unsurprisingly, the same trends of slow growth and rapid polarization are also found in the main source of middle-class income: wage and salary earnings. Median weekly earnings of full-time workers grew 18 percent between 1984 and 2014 despite a 79 percent increase in labor productivity in the United States. As with the income distribution, the earnings distribution has polarized: the share of full-time workers who make between 67 percent and 200 percent of median U.S. earnings fell from 68 percent in 1984 to 60 percent in 2014.

This report examines the role that the decline of labor unions over the past 30 years has played in the hollowing out of the U.S. earnings distribution. We* expect that the decline of unions has reduced the share of middle-class workers because union workers are more likely to be middle class than nonunion workers. Unions represent workers in the middle of the income distribution, which raises the earnings of workers who would otherwise fall below the middle-class threshold. We call the higher share of union workers among middle-class workers the union equality effect.

In this report, we use a technique—known as a shift-share decomposition—that breaks down the falling share of middle-class workers into three factors associated with unionism:

• The first part is due to the decline in union coverage, namely the fact that when a smaller share of workers are in unions, fewer workers benefit from the union equality effect.
• The second part is due to a decline in the union equality effect. As earnings have polarized over the past 30 years, the middle-class share of union workers fell from 83 percent to 72 percent, which is more than the decrease in the share of nonunion workers in the middle class. This reduces the union equality effect.
• The third part is associated with the interaction between the decline in union coverage and the union equality effect.

The decomposition leaves a residual part with no direct connection to unionism that is instead due to the decline in the middle-class share of nonunion workers.

Our main findings are that the decline in union coverage accounts for 35 percent of the falling share of middle-class workers and that the combination of the shrinking share of union workers and the reduction in the union equality effect explains almost half of the decline in middle-class workers. To the extent that union-induced wage increases spill over from union to nonunion workers and that union advocacy produces economic and social policies that benefit the middle class, our results understate the impact of the weakening labor movement on the hollowing out of the U.S. middle class.

Source – https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2016/01/13/128366/what-do-unions-do-for-the-middle-class/

By John George

– A majority of the registered nurses at Delaware County Memorial Hospital have voted to join PASNAP, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals.

The vote, in a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 15 and Jan. 16, was 164 to 130 in favor of unionization.

Angela Neopolitano, a registered nurse who has worked at the Drexel Hill, Pa., hospital for 34 years, said the vote followed concerns expressed by the nurses about “staff and other working conditions” and a desire to have a voice in the pending sale of Crozer-Keystone Health System, Delaware County Memorial’s parent company, to Prospect Medical Holdings.

Crozer-Keystone, in a statement released Monday, said, “We are disappointed in the results of this election, because we do not believe a union is in the best interest of DCMH, its nurses, or the community. However, we respect the right of employees to choose union representation. After the results of the election are certified by the National Labor Relations Board, we will meet with the union to bargain in good faith. We look forward to working with PASNAP to negotiate a contract that is fair for nurses and the hospital.”

Prospect Medical Holdings of Culver City, Calif., signed a definitive agreement to acquire Crozer-Keystone earlier this month. The deal still requires regulatory approvals.

On Saturday, Crozer-Keystone opened a $16.5 million ambulatory care center — the 50,000-square-foot Crozer-Keystone at Broomall — at what had been a Pathmark grocery store on Lawrence Road near Route 3.

PASNAP already represents 650 nurses and paramedics employed by the Delaware County health system.

Bill Cruice, PASNAP’s executive director, said nurses are actively organizing to join PASNAP at two other locations: 850 Hahnemann University Hospital nurses will vote in an NLRB-conducted election this week, and 450 registered nurses at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children will vote in February.

Both Hahnemann and St. Christopher’s are owned and operated by Tenet Healthcare Corp. (NYSE: THC) of Dallas, Texas.

“Our union is growing and getting stronger because nurses know they need a strong, collective voice to effectively advocate for their patients and their profession,” Cruice said.

Source – http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/morning_roundup/2016/01/nurses-at-delco-hospital-vote-to-unionize.html

By IBEW Local 3, New York

– History is written by the winners and revised by the survivors. So don’t be surprised if you ask anyone under 40 years of age about Dr. Martin Luther King’s connection with labor and they come up blank.

Since U.S. school teach little if anything about labor history, nearly two generations of Americans have never learned that civil rights for black and white American Workers was high on King’s agenda.

“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief to the destitute and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life.”

And here is another quote our children will never hear from politicians or educators:

The captains of industry did not lead the transformation to social progress; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shore not only itself but the whole society.”

Dr. King was quick to see through the “right-to-work” scam. Here’s how he described it:

“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as “right-to-work”. It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. …Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are few and there are no civil rights”

Did Dr. King think union representation was a valuable commodity? Listen to this:

“Union meant strength and union recognition mean the employer’s acknowledgement of that strength, and the two meant the opportunity to fight again for further gains with united and multiplied power. As contract followed contract, the pay envelope fattened and fringe benefits and job rights grew to the mature work standards of today. All of these started with winning first union recognition”

And finally, unionism was still on his mind just hours before his death in Memphis in April, 1968, when he declared:

“Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We have got to see it through. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.”

Click Here – To Read a letter written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to IBEW Local 3 (NY), Business Manager, Harry Van Arsdale, Jr. on October 6, 1960 thanking him for his assistance and support. Also mentioned in the letter is renowned poet and important figure in the American Civil Rights movement, Maya Angelou who at the time was Dr. King’s Co-ordinator of his New York Office.

Source – http://www.local3.com/?q=node/5088

By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press

– The head of Atlantic City’s main casino workers union is backing a proposed state takeover of the resort’s finances and assets.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/90092-casino-union-chief-backs-atlantic-city-takeover-proposal-

BY Ben Rosenfield

– The Supreme Court began hearing arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The plaintiff, California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs, and the organizations on the Right that are behind her are arguing that public sector employers violate individuals’ First Amendment rights by compelling employees to pay union fees. The case could in effect force all public sector unions to operate under “right-to-work” rules and decimate public sector union membership—bad news for an already battered American labor movement.

In These Times has covered the case closely since its beginning. Here, we’ve rounded up some of our articles on the case and its implications for U.S. unions.

Friedrichs aims to overturn a nearly 40-year precedent, established in the 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education case, which allows for the use of “fair share” fees for public sector unions. Labor attorney Moshe Marvit argues that this case threatens public sector unions and could cost them millions of dollars, thousands of members and what remains of their institutional power.

Shaun Richman argues that unions could use the Right’s argument in the case and turn it on its head: Since the case interprets contracts as political, unionized workers are compelled, by the government, to represent workers who disagree with them, thus violating their First amendment rights.

Taking stock of the rising threat in both the private and public sectors, Richman also argues that the labor movement needs an equally bold response. He explains the potential upside (and pitfalls) to “members-only” unions, which Friedrichs would impose on the public sector.

Although labor supporters fear that an unfavorable ruling in Friedrichs would have the effect of passing a national right-to-work law for all public employees and permit some workers to become “free riders” who use union resources for representation but don’t pay for that representation, some evidence suggests the Supreme Court may not rule against unions in this case. And even if they do, it won’t mean the end of the labor movement, David Moberg writes.

Another case, Bain v. California Teachers Association raises similar questions and points as Friedrichs. The case was eventually thrown out, but Moshe Marvit lays out the right-wing arguments underlying these cases, put forward by anti-union groups such as StudentsFirst and the Center for Individual Rights.

A ruling against unions in Friedrichs could force unions towards a more radical, rank-and-file, social movement unionism, including organizing and grassroots activism some would like to see more of in the labor movement today. Unions might have to become more bottom-up, radical and democratic in order to survive, writes Ari Paul.

Samantha Winslow explains how unions are preparing for Friedrichs, including membership drives, attempts at rebuilding unions, and organizing models and solidarity with other public sector unions. “Recommitment drives” are also part of the preparation for what may be to come in the wake of an anti-union decision.

By looking back to an earlier period of the labor movement, there is proof that public sector workers have organized and mobilized even without the legal rights to do so. Samantha Winslow says that while Friedrichs could deal a blow to unions and precedents which workers fought to earn, workers have demonstrated that adversity has also served as a catalyst for organization.

In the face of Friedrichs, social movement unionism and connecting at-large union membership with advocacy and legislative campaigns is key, according to Shaun Richman. He proposes that unions fight for meaningful job protections for all workers in a state, not just unionized workers, writing that it could be called the “right to your job” law.

After a day of oral arguments, Moshe Marvit argues that the plaintiff’s arguments in Friedrichs strongly reflect our post-Citizens United world.

Things are looking bad for unions at the Supreme Court. What should labor’s response be? Shaun Richman says it has to include workers’ most powerful weapon: the strike.

Source – http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18745/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association-supreme-court-unions