When I started UnionTrack, a few people asked me, "why unions?"
The short answer is that I believe in making sure each individual worker's voice is heard. Corporate management will always have a way to make their case in the press or in the halls of power, but a steelworker, a machinist, a nurse or a teacher is going to have a rough time getting heard on her own. That's why we need unions, and that's why we need unions to be strong. At their best, unions are the most effective advocates for all working families, and our software helps each union be the best they can be.
Three issues in the news lately remind me how important this is.
First, and most prominent has been the #RaiseTheWage campaign to bring the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Sadly, it looks like any chance of getting this through Congress before the end of the year has all but vanished, and the incoming Congress seems unlikely to take up the issue. It looks like we're going to have to fight this one state by state.
According to this Pew Research Center Report, just over 1.5 million Americans worked for minimum wage last year. While some were teenagers, more than 3/4 were adults. Just over one in three worked full-time for minimum wage.
A woman (and more than half of minimum wage earners are women) working a full-time job — 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year — for minimum wage earns $15,080 per year before taxes... just below the Federal poverty level for a two person household.
This means that woman, earns $290 each week to pay rent and utilities, buy groceries, keep the lights on, heat the house, and do laundry. Oh, and she still has to get to and from work each day!
Here's the other thing. Because she's still below the poverty level, that minimum wage earner isn't able to put anything back into the economy. She's not buying dinner at the restaurant on the corner. She's not buying Christmas presents from the guy who owns the independent toy store down the street. Every penny she earns, she uses to live. Local businesses miss out on customers. The state and city miss out on tax revenue. Everybody loses.
Still, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce says raising the minimum wage will hurt the economy.
The second story, which is closely related, is about the fast food workers organizing to push for a $15 an hour wage. Although this is a national movement, the epicenter has really been New York, where SEIU 32BJ has been working to organize workers under the #FastFoodForward banner.
A few weeks ago, Mayor Bill DeBlasio signed an executive order raising the city's minimum wage to $13.13 per hour. If $290/week sounds barely workable where you live, imagine what it translates to in New York, where the average rent for a 1-BR apartment is $3,450. Even at the new wage, though, you'd have to work 7 weeks to earn enough money to pay a single month's rent. Even in Forest Hills and Brighton Beach — the city's most affordable neighborhoods — it would take more than three weeks' work each month to keep a roof over your head.
McDonald's, in July of this year, reported a $7.2 billon quarterly profit. Their industry association dismissed the protests and called the protesters "greedy."
And finally, one that's been flying a little under the radar, mostly because it's been addressed at the state and local level — the movement to guarantee paid sick leave to hourly workers.
If you noticed above, that $290 hours per week depends on an employee working a full 40-hour week. That means no holidays. No school plays. And most importantly, no getting sick. To an hourly wage-earner, an hour away from work is an hour you fall even further behind. In some cases, calling out sick without finding somebody to cover your shift is even grounds for termination.
So here's what happens. People come to work even when they're sick. They leave sick kids home alone. They get on the subway, or on the bus and show up for work because they can't afford not to.
The Pew Report referenced above showed that more than a million minimum wage earners work in food preparation. I'll let you think about that for a minute.
In April, 2011, The National Restaurant Association set up a Restaurant Advocacy Fund, which spent millions of dollars to fight "complex issues that threaten restaurants' bottom lines." Much of that money was spent fighting legislation to guarantee restaurant employees paid sick leave.
Labor has taken the #LeadOnLeave campaign seriously, but they clearly face a well-funded opposition.
The common thread through all of these stories is the answer to "why unions." As long as there are working people fighting for their most basic rights, the forces that oppose those workers will be well organized and well funded.
There will always be an industry association, an "advocacy fund" or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce standing ready to squash anything that puts working people first.
Unions give the workers a voice, too, but that voice is being drowned out by design. The organized voice of the opposition has been used to splinter the Labor movement, to turn public opinion against people who work hard every day to put food on the table, and to make "union" a dirty word.
We want to give labor its voice back because we believe in the American worker.
That's why we started UnionTrack.
That's "why unions."
"What do think? We'd love to have your thoughts on our Facebook page. You can also join the conversation on Twitter.
For more from UnionTrack, you can check us out on LinkedIn, Google Plus and Pinterest."
In Solidarity,
Ken
