AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Vice President Joe Biden arrives to speak at a White House Champions of Change Law Enforcement and Youth meeting, Monday, September 21, 2015, in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), on the White House complex in Washington.
While a number of unions have already decided to throw their weight behind a chosen Democratic presidential candidate-mostly Hillary Clinton-two major unions said last week that they would hold off on making an early endorsement. Last week, Politico reported that both SEIU and AFSCME were waiting to endorse in light of the possible shake-up in the race if Vice President Joe Biden were to jump in.
SEIU has pushed back on that assertion, saying that its endorsement process is still underway and Joe Biden's indecision has not played a role. "SEIU leaders are engaged in deep conversations with our members around the issues that matter to them most and about the candidates they feel will best lead on those issues," the union said in a statement to the Prospect. "This process was always intended to be fluid and therefore doesn't include a set timeline for endorsement."
The move is a blow to the Clinton, who has been falling in recent polls and was banking on the political resources that an early endorsement from the union giants would have brought. Meanwhile, supporters of Bernie Sanders see the announcement as a victory for their campaign, attributing it to his surge in early voting states and the rank-and-file backlash that other early Clinton-backing unions have faced.
Politico reported today that union leaders at the National Education Association, the country's biggest union with three million members, are recommending an endorsement for Clinton. Like AFT's early announcement, the news of a possible NEA endorsement has quickly sparked protests from state affiliates and rank-and-file members.
Even as Democrats wait to see if their crop of presidential candidates will grow, Republicans are watching theirs shrink. One of the takeaways from Scott Walker's failure to ignite may be that his anti-union extremism doesn't really mesh with Americans' views. As Tim Jones notes for Bloomberg, Walker's departure came just one month after a Gallup poll showed that nationwide support for unions jumped 5 percentage points over the past year, and to its highest level since 2008. "Unions might never recover the strength they had decades ago, but recent signs suggest renewed support for labor, or at least an end to its run as a Republican bogeyman."
Just a couple days after Walker walked, workers at a truck-seat manufacturing plant in Alabama overwhelmingly voted to unionize with the United Autoworkers. The win is a breakthrough for labor organizing in the right-to-work South, where unions have long failed to gain a foothold. There have been other recent signs of promise, too. A couple weeks ago, Birmingham, Alabama instituted a plan to raise its minimum wage to $10.10. Activists are pushing for similar wage hikes in other Alabama cities as well. A handful of other Southern cities have recently passed living wage ordinances that cover city and contract workers. On the other hand, Republicans in the Alabama statehouse have already introduced legislation that would prohibit localities from setting their own minimum wages-a common tactic used in red states.
Scheduling Schisms
In Minneapolis, there's a push to pass a new "fair scheduling" law. The proposed ordinance, following in the footsteps of San Francisco's, would require local businesses to plan out worker schedules four weeks in advance (San Francisco's required just two-weeks advance notice), and pay workers more if they work late-notice or back-to-back shifts. Business owners are already railing against the plan, which they say would be too difficult to comply with. The policy is part of the Mayor Betsy Hodges's three-pronged "Working Families Agenda," which also includes paid sick leave and wage theft enforcement. (The Prospect's Harold Meyerson profiled Hodges last year in an article on newly elected progressive mayors.)
The New York Times reports that Starbucks has failed to make good on its year-old pledge for better labor standards, including scheduling at least 10 days out and ending back-to-back shifts. According to a new report, workers say that these practices are still being used at a number of stores. "We're the first to admit we have work to do," a Starbucks spokesperson said.
A Brave New Economy
This morning, House Republicans held a hearing on the sharing economy-bathing Uber et al in a rosy glow by calling their session "The Disrupter Series: How the Sharing Economy Creates Jobs, Benefits Consumers, and Raises Policy Questions." The hearing is just the latest example of the growing political divergence regarding the merits of the "sharing economy." Republicans tout companies like Uber, Thumbtack, and other Silicon Valley giants as innovative job creators-Jeb Bush even made a pilgrimage to the Valley to pitch his platform. Democrats, however, are wary of the lack of labor protections, adequate pay and benefits for the workers who depend on these on-demand gigs.
Predictably, the blockbuster Browning-Ferris NLRB decision that set an unprecedented joint-employer standard is facing an impending challenge in the courts. As Reuters reports, Browning-Ferris Industries is pushing for the case to be overturned by a federal appeals court. Republicans in Congress, too, have introduced legislation that would overturn the labor board's new standard-though it surely won't muster enough support to overcome a likely veto from Obama.
Companies are already facing pressure to own up to their responsibility for their subcontracted workers. In Los Angeles, workers in a warehouse that serves Amazon went on strike last week to protest wage theft and dangerous working conditions. Buzzfeed's Cora Lewis dives deep into how the new joint-employer standard could give workers more leverage. "The possibility of holding a major corporation accountable for their conditions may be their best bet yet at raising standards."
Tidbits
The editorial staff at the progressive website ThinkProgress unionized with the Writer's Guild of America, East after voluntary recognition from management.
A bill that works to decrease the gender pay disparity has passed in California, and Governor Jerry Brown is expected to sign it into law soon.
More than 100 taxi drivers voted to unionize in Los Angeles, citing the need for employment protection as Uber and Lyft increase their market share.
Presidential candidate Marco Rubio's new paid leave plan uses tax credits, but no mandates.
At the Prospect…
The census released new data on poverty and income last week. Why hasn't the poverty rate gone down yet? Read more…
Co-editor Robert Kuttner argues that the U.S. trade deals with Europe and Asia are faltering under their own contradictory goals. Read more…
This article has been updated to reflect a recent statement from SEIU asserting that Joe Biden's possible candidacy has not played a role in its endorsement decision.
