US economy

Hector Figueroa: The Labor Movement Can Rise Again


It’s not too late to rebuild our movement. Many who study the labor movement thought the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Janus case last year, which aimed to strip unions of vital dues resources, would kill the movement. That’s what the political right was hoping. But we survived, and workers are mobilizing and organizing, with and sometimes without a union behind them.

We cannot let this unique moment in history pass us by. Organizing workers, all kinds of workers, needs to be our No. 1 priority.

My local union, by mandate of its members, spends at least 20 percent of its budget to bring in workers who are not already union members. We are far from perfect, but our strategy is working. Our union has grown to 175,000 members — doubling our size in just over a decade — by talking to workers in sectors that many thought too fragmented to be organized. Thousands of baggage handlers, security personnel, aircraft cleaners and other low-wage workers at airports up and down the East Coast have joined our ranks, taking risks by speaking up and, when necessary, going on strike, to demand respect. These tactics made it possible for 40,000 New York-New Jersey area service workers to win a $19-an-hour wage rate by 2023, the highest government-required minimum wage in the country.

To make lasting change for American workers, unions cannot focus only on dues-paying members. We need a broader movement that helps every family — union or nonunion — win economic security. We can do more. That’s why our union is running a breakthrough campaign in fast food. That’s why we are supporting the taxi workers’ union in New York City, which won the first ever minimum pay rate for Uber drivers and regulations on app companies to protect driver livelihoods. We are also backing New York State farmworkers in their fight for collective bargaining rights, and we helped them to win those rights in this legislative session.

As the Trump administration ramps up its attack on workers, and with Trump’s labor board and the courts firmly on the side of the rich and powerful, the labor movement can’t wait to organize workers shop by shop. We need, instead, industrywide efforts to mobilize large numbers of workers. This “big tent approach” calls for a richer understanding of the economics and competitive dynamics within industries and in different cities.

Let’s take Amazon, which is now the second-largest private employer in the United States, with warehouses scattered all around the country, many of them also staffed by contract workers. Organizing those warehouse workers should be a top priority for the labor movement, but it would be close to impossible for one union to organize so many workers in so many locations. So unions need to pool their resources and work together, with the shared goal of creating secure union jobs, regardless of which union the workers may end up in.

President Trump is trying hard to divide us, but unions can help reverse some of the damage. We can build a lasting movement that will reduce income inequality, create a country that is fair for all and kick the hatemongers out of office. We must begin putting organizing first today, not in 2021.



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