Steven Greehouse, a veteran journalist, wrote an article for The American Prospect that demonstrates the power of unions to improve the lives of workers. The story includes vignettes of workers in different fields who describe how joining a union has raised their salaries, cut the cost of healthcare, and created a workplace where their voices are heard.
He tells the stories of the following working people, whose lives were changed by organizing or joining a union.
- Laura Asher, a former combat medic who was working as a hospital aide, saw her pay jump when she entered her union’s apprenticeship program to become a crane operator. Her pay is now more than three times what her hospital job paid.
- Gregory Swanson, a charter school teacher, was hugely frustrated that his school’s top official assigned him a salary far below his level of experience. But his union contract changed that, requiring the school to follow a pay scale based on years of experience.
- Madeleine Souza-Rivera, a barista at a café in one of Google’s giant office complexes, used to feel overwhelmed by the $9,600 she paid each year in health care premiums. Thanks to her union contract, she now pays nothing toward health premiums.
- Donnell Jefferson, a warehouse worker, complained that he was never sure when he could leave work—his boss would suddenly order workers to put in two, and sometimes even eight, extra hours on the job. But with his union contract, his work hours are now far more predictable.
- Lorie Quinn, a hospital housekeeper who cleans intensive-care units, has seen her pay increase by 70 percent since her hospital unionized six years ago. Moreover, her health insurance premiums have been cut in half.
More than 14 million workers across the United States—carpenters, steelworkers, nurses, teachers, truck drivers, and many others—are union members, but rarely does one read how unions have improved workers’ jobs and lives.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Unions are crucial for evening the playing field and giving the workers a chance at a better life. Chris Christie, for example, was rabidly, frothing at the mouth anti the NJEA. It seemed that every day of his misadministration in NJ, all 8 long years, he was smearing, slandering and demeaning the NJEA. He declared war on the NJEA from the moment he took office and never let up. Thank goodness with Phil Murphy it is totally different; none of that anti-union rhetoric, no scapegoating or character assassination of teachers.
There is an all out war on unions in the US. If we had a strong union presence in the US, it would go a long way in lessening the income inequality.
Yes!
Thank you, Mr. Greenhouse, for this! And Diane, for posting it! The greedy _______ of the ownership class in the United States loathe and fear unions more than they do anything else. There’s a reason for that. Unions make them share a tiny bit of what they have expropriated from the Commons and from others’ labor, and they want it all.
“rarely does one read how unions have improved workers’ jobs and lives.”
It’s not a bug…
Collective bargaining fills in the gaps that are
“missed” by so-called democracy, education, or
electoral “saviors”.
Gotsta keep the bootstraps narrative going…
Yeah, the bootstraps fable. Alas, that works with workers in the United States, who consistently go to the polls and vote against themselves.
After Trump got his big tax cut, he went down to Mar-a-lago for Christmas, sat at a dining table, and told his assembled pals, “I just gave you all a really big Christmas present.”
Trump, champion of the American working man and woman.
“I love the uneducated.” –Donald Trump
…consistently go to the polls
and vote against themselves.
“A man is none the less a slave
because he is allowed to choose
a new master once in a term of years.
Neither are a people any the less
slaves because permitted periodically
to choose new masters.”
And yet the “state actors” keep teaching
the fable that this is a democracy,
then blame someone else for purposefully
distorted misrepresentation…
The oligarchical ownership class in the United States, typified by Trump’s slimy daughter Princess Sparkle, depends enormously upon perpetuating the fable that ours is a meritocracy and a democracy. But its Feudal Age Europe all over again, only instead of The Duke of This and the Earl of That, we have Bezos and Musk, Thiel and Adelson. And just as the peasants ate up the broadsides in Medieval Europe of the adventures and misadventures of the nobility, here they gobble up the daily news reports of the glorious adventures of people like Gates and Bezos and Musk. He’s dating! He had quite the birthday party on his new yacht!
cx: it’s Feudal Age Europe all over again
As it stands today, unionism is almost dead in the United States, having been effectively killed by the new robber barons and their hired Repugnican thug politicians. In 2019, only 10.3 percent of workers in the U.S. had the protection of unions, and almost all of those were in government jobs.
We desperately need a revitalization of the union movement here. Especially in this day of the gig worker.
In my own industry of textbook publishing, the big publishing houses often had people working for them daily, for years, at desks in the office but called them freelancers so that they wouldn’t have to pay them benefits.
And yet the Repugnicans keep insisting on telling the fable that this is a democracy, in which “all men are created equal,” and not some sort of New Feudal Order with its lords and peasants.
Bob Shepherd
The Public Sector Dominance in 2020 is a bit of a fluke . It represents Governments keeping more workers on Payrolls than profit making companies who laid off workers . But the Unionization rate in the Public sector is far greater than in the Private sector.
The other fluke in 2020 was that Unionization rates increased . The number of Union workers actually decreased . The non union sector just decreased more.
Until my fellow union members start caring about the plight of other workers joining in their fight and stop voting for Union busting right wing politicians I am not an optimist. This is a sad pattern in public and Private sector Unions. To many of my fellow union members think “being in a union is a spectator sport”. So much so that when they vote
it never dawns on them that they are on the stage of the coliseum not the stands .
The Unionization rate in NY. is 4 times greater than in Fla. Ask Diane about Staten Island with the highest Unionization rate of any Borough in NYC.
Thank you for these clarifications, Joel. I would gladly sit in a class you taught on unionism. Again, many thanks for this post and for your many others.
John Oliver just put out a hilarious video about union busting, and suppression of attempts to form a union, with corporations spending up to hundreds of millions to achieve those goals:
(the in-house anti-union videos that non-union workers are forced to watch are scary)
The John Oliver video about union busting is wonderful. It was posted here about two weeks ago.
Well actually the unions are trying to harm retirees in NYC by trying to force them out of Medicare into Medicare Advantage. This is spearheaded by UFT president Mulgrew.
Michael, the union plan is my secondary insurance and I opted out of the Medicare Advantage offer. Retirees need certainty, not a speculative cost-cutting plan. But this big error does not obviate the need for unions.
A New York judge has granted granted a “stay” on the mandatory switch from Medicare to Medicare Advantage for NYC workers. The change was agreed to by a municipal workers’ group, not the individual unions, it seems. I hope it is struck down as it would be a dangerous precedent that will spread like poison if it is allowed.https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/10/21/22739784/court-blocks-controversial-medicare-switch-for-retired-nyc-workers
I recently had a hospitalization and had only Medicare A, B, and D. If I had had a Medicare Advantage plan, the cost to me would have been far less.
Ofc, what we actually need is a single Medicare for All Plan for everyone. As it is, seniors have to try to plow through and compare hundreds of offerings, each with enormous amounts of fine print. Our system is insane.
Medicare Advantage may cost less for younger, healthier seniors. Anyone with a serious, costly medical procedure would generally be better off with Medicare as there are limits to how much the illness will cost the retiree. Medicare Advantage has a much smaller network of doctors, and people need a referral before seeing a doctor. Also, it is not so easy for people to return to Medicare. There is a penalty that has to be paid upon returning. Healthcare is a very complex maze for people today. Before making any change, make sure to do your research.
BTW, I have Medicare and a supplement. My recent hip surgery bill was about $38. I also got a visiting nurse and six weeks of PT included. Medicare Advantage patients do not get this benefit unless a doctor is willing to duke it out with the insurance company.
You can get a Medicare Advantage PPO, which allows you to go to any doctor, unlike the Advantage HMO plans. Another confusing part of this whole mess.
The Medicare Advantage plan proposed for NYC public retirees has several disadvantages: any major procedure must be pre-approved by the insurer. The retiree must choose a provider from an approved list. None of my doctors are on the approved list. The reason for the change is allegedly to save hundreds of millions every year. What will be cut?
Yeah. Sounds like they are replacing Medicare A and B plus a supplemental gap plan with a Medicare Advantage Plan–less coverage.
Healthcare is a very complex maze for people today. Indeed it is. I’m a skilled reader, and it’s difficult for me. The entire thing is extraordinarily Byzantine/rococo.
Hospital costs to the Patient under Medicare A and B, without an additional supplemental plan (which the patient will have had to pay for separately):
$1,484 ($1,556 in 2022); this is the Medicare deductible for each benefit period .
Days 61–90: $371 ($389 in 2022) coinsurance PER DAY of each benefit period.
Days 91 and beyond: $742 ($778 in 2022) coinsurance per each “lifetime reserve day” after day 90 for each benefit period (up to 60 days over your lifetime).
So, I owed about $1,500 (plus various fees that doctors who saw me charged separately–Does anyone understand the Byzantine laws governing that?
The system seems to have been co-written by Franz Kafka and Rube Goldberg.
Hope you are recovering well from your hip surgery, RT!
For those who don’t know what Retired Teacher and I we are talking about, Medicare A and B is standard Medicare. D is optional Medicare drug coverage, for which you pay extra via arrangement with an insurance provider. A monthly fee for Part B is taken out of your Social Security. Standard monthly premiums for Part B will cost $170.10 in 2022, up from $148.50 in 2021. This is the largest increase to citizens of Medicare monthly cost in history. Again, if you enroll in Medicare, Medicare cost will be taken out automatically from your Social Security before you receive it. Medicare is not free to recipients. They pay for it. Every month.
A Medicare Advantage Plan is an insurance plan that involves the government taking the Part B premium from your social security and sending it to the insurance provider who offers the Advantage Plan that you signed up for. Medicare Advantage Plans begin with monthly additional costs to you of $0. Others charge a fee on top of that.
If you think that this is complicated, just wait until you get to the point that you are trying to figure out what plan you need. Good luck with that. You will need it.
BTW, those costs to Medicare recipients are for in-patient hospital procedures. Nota bene: If you are treated in a hospital and on Medicare, make CERTAIN that you are admitted as an inpatient. Otherwise, you are in for a very nasty surprise about the bill.
Oh, and if you go for a colonoscopy and they discover polyps, the provider will remove these on an OUTPATIENT basis, and you will have another very, very nasty surprise when you get the bill.
My new hip is great, thanks. I know some hospitals were admitting patients for “observation” rather than regular admission. Medicare does not cover observation, and seniors were left with a huge bill. Our system is a mess, and that does not even include the drug company scammers.
Sp glad to hear this! And the insurance company scammers. Our per capita healthcare cost is TWICE that of other countries in the OECD because of the profits skimmed off by insurance companies, drug makers, and the big health provider facilities/networks, while our outcomes are worse. But will the Democratic Party educate the people about this? No, because the DIMS, like the REPUGS, feed at that trough.
Outpatient treatment at hospital = $$$$$$ owed by folks on Medicare
Every part of this system is insanely complicated. For example, if you buy from among the hundreds of providers a Medicare Part D drug plan, after having waded through these to compare them, the cost of that is also deducted from your Social Security and sent to the provider. However, only certain drugs are covered, and for those you have a copay–Tier 1 and 2 drugs. If you are prescribed drugs in higher Tiers, forget it. And, once you reach a yearly limit, you enter what is colloquially known as “the doughnut hole,” in which you pay out of pocket for your drugs until you reach a much higher limit. This happens to my mother each year because of the drugs she has been prescribed. At some point in the year, she falls into the “doughnut hole” and has to pay for her drugs full price, out of pocket. $300 for this one. $200 for that one.
THIS NONSENSE IS UNKNOWN IN CIVILIZED COUNTRIES.
Bob….If you have the time and energy, you may be able to get your mother’s Rx for free or at a discounted price. Most people don’t know this but drug companies want Dr’s to prescribe the costly meds so some offer “assistance” for those who have difficulty paying for the med. Go to the manufacturer’s website and search. There is a downloadable form that needs to be filled out by your mother (financial) and her prescribing physician (medical info). Once/if she is approved, the meds come from the drug company and need to be called in monthly/quarterly etc. It’s a pain, but if you or your mother are willing to put in the time and effort, it can save a lot of $$$$. I was a medical secretary for many years and had to do this for patients and I also had to do it for my own mother when one of her meds became a financial burden.
Thank you, Lisa. Yet another example of how breathtakingly convoluted our medical insurance system is in the US. Ridiculous. But again, thank you.
Before the ACA my son did not have insurance for a couple of years. We were able to get him a free Good Rx card which offers discounts on common medicines. I don’t know if it would help your Mom out, Bob, particularly if she takes a proprietary drug. The drug companies get a certain number of years to make maximum profit, even though lots of the R&D may be taxpayer funded. Big Pharma is another gigantic lobbying group.
Bob Shepherd
I think the point of what is happening with the NYC Public sector workers is that they had a supplemental insurance for costs not covered by Medicare as part of their negotiated contracts. The City is not saving money by spending more on a private insurance company. Obviously they are doing it to save billions.
As for the means tested deductions from Social Security to Medicare . They represent a tiny fraction of what that insurance would cost if you had to buy it on the market. For 2022 that premium will be $170. Monthly Or 2000 dollars a year.
But hay I am with you on M4all. Sadly too many union members are not they are clueless as the author of this post said: .
“Madeleine Souza-Rivera, a barista at a café in one of Google’s giant office complexes, used to feel overwhelmed by the $9,600 she paid each year in health care premiums. Thanks to her union contract, she now pays nothing toward health premiums”
Please tell Madeleine that she paid every penny of that cost if it was not going to Health Insurance those dollars would be available for wages or other benefits , like larger pensions.
The cost of health insurance in my Union contract is +- 18 dollars an hour for a journeyman. I assure you the vast majority of my fellow Union brothers think like Madeleine. When they do acknowledge their hourly contribution they are more often than not off by a factor of between 5 and 10.
Thus when the discussion of M4all comes up. They see it as a tax . The members of my union would actually do better with M4all as that hourly contribution far exceeds the proposed tax to finance M4all. They would receive more in wages and benefits.,,
So who killed the M4all proposal for NY State, the Unions.
I think I will vomit now.
Brilliantly argued, Joel
retired teacher
The cost of those Patents is multiple times the amount they invested in research. The savings to the American people from eliminating patents is about 400billion. (Baker) . Look no further than our MRNA vaccines brought to you by NIH ,not Pfizer or Moderna
The [healthcare] system seems to have been co-written by Franz Kafka and Rube Goldberg”
I never knew those two were insurance and pharmaceutical company lobbyists.
I always learn something from you, Bob.
lol
Actually, I always thought Kafka was a poster boy for Raid Roach Killer
And that Rube Goldberg worked for Hasbro, makers of the Mousetrap game
New drugs get a certain number of years before the patent expires. That’s why the TV advertised drugs are generally new, expensive drugs. When patents expire, the generic producers can start making it. Some drugs are only made by one or two companies, and the companies have jacked up prices on life saving medications. The epi pen and insulin are two that come to mind that are disgraceful examples of profiteering. Big Pharma is a big part of the problem.
The latest is that Medicare premiums are slated to go up, largely to cover a drug for Alzheimers that was given rushed FDA approval under “questionable” circumstances (it may not actually do anything. Ho hum) and that some believe has the potential to torpedo the whole Medicare program.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/03/sanders-calls-biden-slash-outrageous-medicare-premium-hike
Business as usual.
“Nothing to see here, folks. Move along!”
Once upon a time (in my lifetime, in fact), this fact went without saying.
YUP.
Unions elevate workers’ lives. When I was reading the profiles of the various union workers, I was struck by how so many workers today have to fight for so many issues that workers fought for in the past. The New Orleans’ teacher had to fight for the things he could have had if the public schools hadn’t been dismantled in order to create union free charter schools
In New York the AFT, UFT and NYSUT fought fiercely for decent pay, benefits and rights back in the day. They were not the paper tigers they seem to be today. Today they seem to be afraid to be assertive. In the 70s’ through the ’90s the unions had the workers’ back. In New Jersey one of the reasons Chris Christie wanted to “punch the president of the union in the face” was because she was defending her union members against an aggressive bully that wanted to strip workers of negotiated benefits and rights.
Thanks to the NJEA and the local unions, I have a decent pension and health benefits. Because of Christie’s spewings and right wing propaganda, too many of the general public blame teachers for the state debt and high property taxes. They claim that teachers’ pensions are too rich and should be eliminated and replaced with 401Ks or defined contribution pensions. The pension is not a gift, I paid into the pension system with each and every paycheck for 31 years.
Christie is appearing on news shows trying to sell his book, which, thankfully, is not doing too well. He wants to appear “relevant” so he can launch a toxic bid for the White House in 2024.
All told, freelancers (gig workers) account for 36 percent of the U.S. workforce, and the $1.4 trillion they contribute to the U.S. economy each year represents an increase of nearly 30 percent since last year. Since 2014, the freelance workforce grew by 8.1 percent—faster than the U.S. workforce overall, which grew by 2.6 percent over the same period.
53% of all Gen Z workers are freelancers.
And the ownership class in the Untied States wants it that way. They spend a lot on their collection of judicial windup toys and political bobblehead dolls to keep it that way.
Because Jeff needs his private spaceship, and Jeffrey needed his private island, and as Bill, who knows everything about everything can tell you, monopolies drive innovation, lol.
The first paragraph in this comment is from SCORE, an organization that promotes small businesses and describes itself as follows: “SCORE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).”
“The Royal Prerogative was not to be canvassed, nor disputed, nor examined, and did not even admit of any limitation.” –Queen Elizabeth I of England (1601)
“I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump said. “But I don’t even talk about that.” –Donald Trump
Here we are. The New Feudal Order
Nope. Never talked about that. This wholly fabricated reading of Article 2 of the Constitution. Expect a lot more such rereadings in the near future. All animals are equal [but some are more equal than others are].
Obviously, Trump never read any part of the Constitution. Article 2 does NOT give the President “the right” to do whatever he wants. The men who wrote the Constitution were opposed to monarchs, and they put many safeguards in the document to check unbridled power.
Ofc. Article 2 says no such thing. The guy is a moron, and he doesn’t read. A recent book details the experiences of intelligence officials trying to brief this idiot, who never read what they provided to him and wanted to spend the briefings sounding off, himself, from his entirely fact-free vantagepoint.
Bob, I mistakenly dropped the word NOT from my comment about Article 2. Nothing in Article 2 gives the President the right to do whatever he wants.
I knew that! Ofc!
I knew immediately that you had dropped the word not. Easy to do.
“Nothing in Article 2 gives the President the right to do whatever he wants.”
Correct.
That right came from Richard Nixon.
I was the youngest. My sister and brother were both more than a decade older than me when I was born.
And, when I was born, my family was still living in poverty, barely surviving and avoiding homelessness. Thanks in part to the Great Depression, our parents never graduated from high school. Out mother worked in the laundry at the City of Hope. Our father mucked out horse stalls at Santa Anita Race Track and trekked into the San Gabriel mountains to fill large burlap bags with oak leaves he’d sell the plant nurseries.
Then my Catholic Godfather managed to get our dad in his labor union and hired at the same concrete company where he worked. I was between three and five, and our lives changed dramatically.
The house we lived in had tar paper walls with no windows and doors. Just framing. After joining that union with a union job and pay with benefits, my dad had the money to buy windows, doors, and siding. Each payday he’d show up in his rusty old pickup truck with doors, windows, and siding and over a period of months, that house became a lot more livable, not just a tar papered frame of two by fours with a sound roof.
If it hadn’t been for the medical that came with the union job, I would have died before turning seven.
THIS.
It’s interesting that union medical benefits are mentioned a number of times in this discussion.
If there was Medicare for All, or universal healthcare and no separate union plans, would that be better for unions who would only be negotiating wages and working conditions but not for healthcare?
I support unions, but I can see some problems. The NYPD has a very strong union, but somehow that strong union has not always been good. There are many reasons I am not a fan of incoming Mayor Eric Adams, but I am hoping he is able to do something that ruined more progressive Mayors, and that is to reform the NYPD and stand up to the union (which did not support him, despite Eric Adams being a former police officer). Don’t know if he has the courage. Don’t know how to change who controls the union when they are not really serving the needs of their members as much as the needs of some of their members.
I also read lots of teachers here who condemn their union leaders. I understand that, but it does make me distrust unions more. And I start out as someone inclined to support unions.
It is clear from the many posts from teachers here that many of you have problems with union leaders. How does one make the leadership more responsive while making it clear to the public that the union itself is a very good thing and needs to be supported?
The answer to that can be applied to the Democratic party. So many of its members complain about the leaders, and those who hear it wonder if there is any value to the Democratic party. And, that is the same message that voters hear about unions — if the people who should be supporting them are talking about how awful their leaders are all the time, then why does it matter if politicians who actively want to destroy unions get elected? Maybe if unions are disempowered, unions will elect better leaders. I don’t believe that works, but it is certainly the same message one hears about the Democrats.
I never hear that about the NYPD. Is there much public grumbling by members of the NYPD union about how bad the union leaders were? If there was more, maybe there would be more political will to reform the NYPD.
Finally – what happens when the interests of retirees conflict with the interests of the working members in a union? In a perfect world both get everything they want, but negotiations always involve compromises between competing interests in the union, and even if the compromises are fair, they often just end up with all union members being unhappy.
Yes! As a teacher in Columbus, Ohio, I was privileged to help re-organize our tired teacher “association” into a strong local union–the CEA, which still exists. In my tenure there–1967-’81, we were able (with help from OEA & NEA) to do the following and more: Raise wages from last in the state for major cities to 2nd; regulate and reduce class sizes; create maternity leave, so pregnant teachers didn’t have to resign; a revamped evaluation procedure, with due process for teachers struggling to succeed; establish personal leave; establish extra pay for extra duties, such as coaching and club or activity advising, etc. We also defended teachers who were being fired for reasons unstated–taking a case all the way to the US Supreme Ct. We established a Task Force on Sex Discrimination and pushed for equal pay and opportunities for women teachers, as well as equal funding for girls’ sports. We pushed for and supported efforts toward desegregated (as to race) staffs and student bodies.
Not all unions do as well, but almost any union is worth the dues and worthy of support, whether in education or any other line of work.
Those in the de facto aristocracy call everything that supports workers part of the “nanny state”. They, the aristocrats, were raised by nannies, perhaps. The rest of us were raised by parents and guardians. I ask what, if not to be the guardian of its people, is the purpose of government? Government must support unions.
Someone should write a thesis on Critical Projection Theory, since “projection” explains so much of what we hear from the Right wingers.
The Projectors
They criticize the Nanny State
When nannies brought them up
They criticize the Welfare State
When bailouts are their sup
They criticize “Immoral state”
When God is “God of War”
And criticize the “Debtor State”
With hand out for some more
Simone Weil, a unionist in the 1930’s, described the “patriotism of compassion”.