That’s good news for labor unions, but it’s important to make note of a crucial caveat: While the percentage of unionized workers rose, the overall number of U.S. workers represented by unions declined by 321,000 last year to 14.3 million.
If that’s slightly confusing, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C. think tank, explains it like this: While unionization levels did indeed drop in 2020, unionization rates rose because workers belonging to unions experienced less job losses than non-union workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Where workers have been able to act collectively and bargain through their union, they have been able to secure enhanced safety measures, additional premium pay, and paid sick time, during the pandemic,” said EPI Director of Policy Heidi Shierholz. “Due to this, unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers have navigated the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs. This likely played a role in limiting overall job loss among unionized workers.”
Michigan Advance
January 26, 2021
An examination of the same data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that while unionization levels dropped nationally in 2020, unionization rates rose because union workers have seen less job loss than non-union workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Where workers have been able to act collectively and bargain through their union, they have been able to secure enhanced safety measures, additional premium pay, and paid sick time, during the pandemic,” said EPI Director of Policy Heidi Shierholz. “Due to this, unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers have navigated the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs. This likely played a role in limiting overall job loss among unionized workers.”
Researchers at EPI also point out that another factor explaining these figures is that industries with lower unionization rates, like leisure and hospitality, have tended to experience the most job loss during the pandemic, while sectors with higher unionization rates, like the public sector, have tended to see less job loss.
Workday Minnesota
January 26, 2021
“Unionized workers have had a voice in how their employers have navigated the pandemic, including negotiating for terms of furloughs or work-share arrangements to save jobs,” said Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. “This likely played a role in limiting overall job loss among unionized workers.”
She attributed more than half the gain in the rate of union membership to job losses among nonunion workers.
Newsday
January 26, 2021
After decades of declining unionization, in the middle of a pandemic, “the share of the workforce that’s represented by a union jumped up, from 11.6 percent to 12.1 percent,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Shierholz said more than 20 million workers lost their jobs last year, union and non-union alike. But she said union workers “lost fewer jobs than their nonunion counterparts. And so the unionization rate actually rose.”
She said unions successfully negotiated furlough and work-share arrangements to preserve jobs.
NPR Marketplace
January 26, 2021
Advocates have also noted the policy’s potential to cut into racial and gender inequity. In cheering the Raise the Wage Act on Tuesday, the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute said 23% of workers who would benefit from the policy are Black or Latina women.
CNBC
January 26, 2021
Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which played a pivotal role in backing the Fight for $15, sees considerable momentum behind a $15 minimum.
…
“A $15 minimum is the single most concrete way to reduce racial inequality, put money in people’s pockets and make material change in people’s lives,” Henry said. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, found that raising the minimum to $15 would help 25% of Black workers, 19.1% of Hispanic workers, 13.1% of White workers and 10.8% of Asian workers.
The Guardian
January 26, 2021
“A few years ago you hardly heard about college graduates taking unpaid internships,” the Economic Policy Institute’s Ross Eisenbrey told The New York Times in 2012, a statement that now feels bleakly quaint. “But now I’ve even heard of people taking unpaid internships after graduating from Ivy League schools.”
The New Republic
January 26, 2021
Nationally, 3,878,000 Americans were considered long-term unemployed (having gone six months without work while looking for work) as of December. That number accounts for fully a third of all unemployed Americans, and the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould tells Bloomberg the percentage is “going to be continuing to rise.”
Grub Street
January 26, 2021