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Also in Fall 2012
- In Their Own Words
- Voter Harassment, Circa 2012
- Working Together -- Election 2012: The Choice is Clear for American Workers
- Why I'm an Activist
- What happens if GOP's voter suppression works?
- CWA, Allies to Register 25,000 New Pennsylvania Voters
- More Wins for Workers
- CWAers Running for Office
- Get Money Out of Politics
- Protect Collective Bargaining
- Voter Suppression Threatens To Turn Back The Clock
- Presidential Candidates on the Issues
Without Unions, Middle Class Families Are Worse Off: Here's Proof
We know that bargaining rights and union membership make a difference. But never has the connection between the loss of bargaining rights and the decline of the middle class in the US been so clear.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund in its report, “Unions Make the Middle Class,” spells out exactly what has happened in the US as bargaining rights have declined.
Some of the highlights:
• “The percentage of workers in unions steadily declined largely because the legal and political environment prevents private-sector workers from freely exercising their right to join or not to join a union. Membership in private-sector unions stands at less than 7 percent today, from around 30 percent in the late 1960s… Public-sector unionization is under significant threat from conservative political opposition.”
“Without the counterbalance of workers united together in unions, the middle class withers because the economy and politics tend to be dominated by the rich and powerful, which in turn leads to an even greater flow of money in our economy to the top of income scale. The percentage of unionized workers tracks very closely with the share of the nation’s income going to the middle class—those in the three-fifths of income earners.”
• “The share of pretax income earned by the richest 1 percent of Americans more than doubled between 1974 and 2007. And for the richest of the rich, the top 0.1 percent, the gains have been even more astronomical, quadrupling over this same period to 12.3 percent of all income. In contrast, incomes for more Americans have been nearly flat and median income after accounting for inflation actually fell for working age households…between 2001 and 2007.”
• According to new Census Data, “a 10-percentage-point increase in the unionization rate would boost the average annual income for middle-class households—unionized or not—by $1,501 a year.”
Read the full report at www.americanprogress.org, search “unions make the middle class” for the latest updates.