The New York Times reported a new study showing the value of union membership in boosting academic achievement.
Not only does union membership raise the wages of working people, which means a better standard of living for children, but it leads to policies that help schools and children.
It is well established that unions provide benefits to workers — that they raise wages for their members (and even for nonmembers). They can help reduce inequality.
A new study suggests that unions may also help children move up the economic ladder.
Researchers at Harvard, Wellesley and the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, released a paper Wednesday showing that children born to low-income families typically ascend to higher incomes in metropolitan areas where union membership is higher….
Their most interesting explanation is that unions are effective at pushing the political system to deliver policies — like a higher minimum wage and greater spending on schools and other government programs — that broadly benefit workers. Perhaps not surprisingly, three cities that appear to reflect the union effect — San Francisco, Seattle and New York — are all jurisdictions where the minimum wage is rising substantially (though for New York it is only for workers in fast-food chains.)….
It’s important to emphasize that the study does not establish causality — the authors can’t prove that unions are driving the improvement in mobility. For that matter, they don’t attempt to. The finding establishes only that, in their words, “mobility thrives in areas where unions thrive….”
And that, in turn, suggests something potentially important, though equally speculative, about the effects of unions more broadly: Higher rates of unionization may give rise to certain norms that instill a greater sense of agency in workers.
For example, people who belong to unions are generally aware that they have certain rights in the workplace and are encouraged to speak up if they believe they’ve been mistreated. It’s the kind of norm that could leach out into a broader population — to both union members and their nonunion peers — if unions are sufficiently visible and active, which could in turn help boost economic mobility.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But labor unions aren’t good for the profits of corporations that benefit the wealthiest 1% of Americans the most, because the corporations end up paying more to their workers who belong to the 99%, providing better health for those workers, paid vacations for those workers, and even end up agreeing to contribute to better retirement plans for those workers.
All we have to do is look at Walmart or the fast food industry to see how it benefits the top 1% when they don’t have to deal with a labor union that represents the other 99%.
For instance, the Walton family is the wealthiest family on the planet while hundreds of thousands of those who work Walmart have to apply for food stamps to avoid starvation. The Walmart workforce is doing what’s right for the 1%. The Walmart workers are sacrificing so the wealthy can buy more private jets, more mansions, more yachts and have more political power.
The 99% MUST sacrifice for the few who make up the 1% where we will find the greatest concentration of psychopaths, who care nothing for the 99%.
Come on, have some empathy for the psychopaths, who belong to the wealthiest 1%.
Cut taxes for the wealthiest 1%.
Get rid of inheritance tax for the wealthiest 1%.
Get rid of labor unions so the richest 1% can grow their wealth faster.
Cut medical care for the 99% because that will mean more profits for the 1%.
Get rid of retirement plans for the 99%.
Get rid of unemployment benefits for the 99%.
Get rid of Social Security for the 99%.
Get rid of Obamacare.
Get rid of the VA medical system for our veterans. If they come home with PTSD no legs, no arms, too bad. The cost of their health care cuts into the growth of wealth and power for the 1%.
Get rid of Medicare.
Let’s hear it for the return of sweat shop labor, poverty wages, the company stores that ends up owning the souls of their workers, and lets return to indentured workers as young as age seven and even free slave labor.
Let’s roll things back to the way they were before the Civil War.
Hey, Bill Gates, the Walton family, Eli Broad, the Koch brothers, David Coleman, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Eva Moskowitz and all those hedge fund billionaires in addition to so many others who are earning six to eight figure incomes, do you notice how I’m standing up for your rights to be as wealthy and powerful as you deserve while you destroy the lives of millions of children, teachers and parents?
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This study finds a correlation between union membership level and benefits for the *entire* community, not only for union members and their families.
Of course our philanthropic billionaire overlords would like to be able to duplicate that community benefit in a handy marketable commodity. Perhaps in a spray can. Presto!
(Credit Philip K. Dick, in his novel “Ubik” for the idea of reality that comes in a spray can.)
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“Of Agency and Phagency”
The unions bolster “agency”
Belief that “Yes, we can”
The oligarchs boost “phagency”
Which eats the union man
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Personal note: I grew up in a Teamster family. My father was a delivery route driver. When I was 4, he got a new job. It was the same job but he went from a non-union shop to a union shop. We moved into a nicer house within a year. He supported a family of three on his wages (my mother was a stay-at-home mother and wife). We had an annual driving vacation that usually involved camping. We were surrounded by Teamster and UAW folk.
One thing many parents in my neighborhood wanted for their kids was a college education. In fact, many of the kids I was friends with in school went on to multiple degrees. To this day, my father says that his proudest achievement is my college degree. He made and saved enough money to assist with college and I never had a single loan.
And we could not have done that without the collective bargaining power and workers’ rights provided by the Teamsters. (My dad worked from 1958-1992.) My life was significantly better because of my dad’s union membership.
I understand that I’m a sample size of one. I also understand that my father worked in the Golden Age of Unionism. But I think the power of unionization for increased wages must have some positive affects on the entire household. My mom never needed a second job. She was always home to help me. She loved reading and taught me reading basics before I was in kindergarten. I was truly lucky. I don’t attribute all of this solely to my dad’s membership in the Teamsters, but I know that it increased the possibility of much of what I described.
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My dad was in a non-union shop, but without competing union wages, we would have been in poverty. Too many people forget that. Unions help set a ground floor for all true working Americans, organized or not. If and when the 1%ers destroy the last union, then the checks holding in place unbridled corporate greed and corruption are gone. History does not paint a pretty picture of societies where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, and most of the population is seen as expendable, subhuman commodities. It makes a second dark ages and the fall of America seem very real to those outside the Fox News bubble.
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Don’t forget the Russian, French, and English Revolutions either. History doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the fate of the oligarchs and plutocrats who subject the masses to the misery.
They fear that. It has been written up in the NYT, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere in the last couple of years.
Proclaiming our history is perhaps a good way to remind the billionaire boys club and the hedge funders that they are treading on thin, thin ice, historically.
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True. I highly doubt America can take much more income inequality and uncertainty. It is like a fault line where the tectonic strain needs to somehow be relieved. It can be small corrections and a gradual strengthening of the middle class and the proper share of denied, earned wealth. Or a major seismic event in which no one wins. Most Americans seem to be slipping backwards. Job uncertainty, declining compensation, rising college debt, eroding retirements. You can only blame teachers for so long.
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I believe this was true when I was teaching, but am saddened to say things have changed. It seems the union is focused on salaries/benefits which I know are important. If the teacher is outspoken and lobbies for Special Ed Students, the union is not as apt to stand behind the teacher and risk having the administration upset.
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Unions are good for children and other living things.
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What about during the zombie apocalypse?
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Something to be said for your metaphor, MV. As a math person, you must appreciate that the zombie apocalypse is a zero sum game: you either count among the living, or you become part of the problem and are undead. Everybody fights; nobody quits. A living wage would never be more relevant,
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Looks like DC is sticking with an exclusive focus on testing and opening new charter schools:
“Having pushed an aggressive state agenda of Common Core State Standards, more rigorous assessments, teacher evaluations, charter schools, and other education reforms, King will draw upon his experience of successes and setbacks in his deep commitment to do the right things for kids. My guess is that King will acknowledge making mistakes, but transforming the U.S. education system from the classroom to the legislative committee room requires both change and occasional failures. What is important is what is learned — and improved upon — from these experiences.”
Have any public schools received the “support” for Common Core they were promised by the ed reform lobby and the Obama Administration? They put the Common Core tests in public schools all over the country. Wasn’t there supposed to be some benefit to this program for children, besides really long tests the kids have to take?
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This would be an important article for us in California if we had unions representing teachers. We do not. CTA, NEA, AFT and CFT serve our overlords in politics and have adopted the cover of ‘social justice unionism,’ in order to serve a political agenda that does not include protecting teachers and teaching. UTLA alone has gotten rid of 5,000 teachers many of which are disabled senior teachers. It’s hard to reconcile social justice with putting teachers out of work.
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