Media clips
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El desempleo de los latinos ha ido cayendo tras la Gran Recesión y la tasa de desocupación entre hombres de esta comunidad y los blancos se ha ido acercando. Las mujeres aun sufren una tasa más elevada que el resto de las mujeres (5.7% frente al 4.3%) pero si hay algo que no ha cambiado casi nada en las últimas décadas es el rendimiento de ese trabajo: el cheque. En materia salarial hay un techo de cristal. La brecha entre lo que cobran los latinos frente a los blancos se ha mantenido durante décadas. (whole story)
El Dario July 3, 2018 -
A genuinely progressive trade policy — one that preserves peace and reciprocity and mutual benefit, while also insuring justice for the poor and working classes — would require deep and radical changes. Josh Bivens, a progressive economist at the Economic Policy Institute, has written on how this could work. We can also look further back to John Maynard Keynesfor examples of a totally different, and more economically just, approach to international trade. But long story short, these would be deep and radical changes. And getting from here to there may well require stepping back, at least temporarily, from big multilateral trade arrangements.
The Week July 3, 2018 -
Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy for the Economic Policy Institute, said workers will struggle to have a voice with the Supreme Court’s decision. She noted that the right to unionize and collectively bargain will continue to be covered heavily as workers try to shift the balance of power. “As was seen in the reaction to the teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and beyond, when issues of economic justice and workers’ rights are put front and center, the interests of the wealthy few rarely prevail,” she said.
Law 360 July 3, 2018 -
The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank producing research on worker rights, wages and employment, has relied on the four biggest public-sector unions for about 10 to 15 percent of its roughly $6 million in annual revenue in recent years. “We aren’t seeing it as an existential threat,” said Thea Lee, the institute’s president, “but we have been trying to be conservative in what projects we pursue.”
The New York Times July 2, 2018 -
Black women make up the highest share of public sector workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and close to one in five black adults work in some type of government job. Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, warns this decision could impact black public sector workers disproportionately. In a statement, he said, “protecting the fundamental rights of all citizens is extremely important. Civil Rights and Workers Rights are inextricably linked. Today’s decision could dismantle unions as we know them, which has paved the way for African Americans and other marginalized groups to break economic barriers, reach into the middle class, and establish financial security for their family.”
Marketplace July 2, 2018 -
It’s likely that this outcome is exactly what those bankrolling Janus wanted. Plaintiff Mark Janus was represented by the Liberty Justice Center; The New York Times reported in February that the organization’s key financial supporter was Republican mega-donor Richard Uihlein. Meanwhile, the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute published a paper in February linking a string of court cases challenging unions to a hub of wealthy conservative donors, including Uihlein and the Koch brothers.
Time July 2, 2018 -
Obviously, if unions were erased from America, the income of unionized workers would fall. But according to research from left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute (EPI), declines in unionization are linked to a drop in the pay of nonunion workers, too. And the implications of organized labor’s total collapse go way beyond paychecks. Without unions, racism and tribalism might get worse, cities could look physically different, rent would likely be even harder to keep up with, and weekends might become a thing of the past. More than anything else, what emerged from conversations with economists, labor experts, sociologists and futurists is that a society without unions would look a lot like the increasingly gilded-age reality we live in now—just worse. And it’s not nearly as implausible as you might think. “We don’t have to sort of wonder and fictionalize it,” Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy at EPI, told me. “History gives us an indication—before we had meaningful labor representation and unions—of what our economy looked like.” (Celine quoted throughout)
Vice News June 29, 2018 -
Progressive economists say that Americans should expect to see economic inequality increase as public-sector unions adjust to a post-Janus world. According to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, “[a]s union membership has fallen over the last few decades, the share of income going to the top 10 percent has steadily increased.” When union membership peaked at 33.4 percent in 1945, the share of income going to the top 10 percent was 32.6 percent. By 2011, when union membership was down to 11.1 percent, the share of income going to the top 10 percent reached 48 percent. The gap is even more stark when it comes to wealth: In 2017, the top 1 percent of American households owned 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, a higher share than at any point since 1962. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. EPI attributes these trends to the lack of bargaining power that non-union workers have to negotiate their wages, among other factors that have made wealth distribution more unequal.
The Intercept June 29, 2018 -
Nearly half of union workers are public sector employees, and many of them are women. “Black women in particular could be hurt by Janus, as they are disproportionately represented in public sector jobs,” says the Economic Policy Institute. “[They] have traditionally faced a double pay gap — a gender pay gap and a racial wage gap. However, unions help reduce these pay gaps. Working black women in unions are paid 94.9% of what their black male counterparts make, while nonunion black women are paid just 91% of their counterparts.” (chart included)
Refinery29 June 29, 2018 -
But the left-of-center Economic Policy Institute said “billionaire-backed organizations finally got their decision.” “It will have profound implications, not just for the 6.8 million state and local government workers” represented by unions but “all 17.3 million state and local government workers and indeed for every working person throughout the country,” the Institute said.
Agence France Press (AFP) June 29, 2018