WASHINGTON – In an effort to bolster sagging membership, labor leaders are trying new tactics, like helping non-union QSR workers hold strikes and organizing home day-care workers, university graduate students and legalized marijuana dealers, The Journal Gazette reports.
The leaders said they must create new models and ways to represent workers in order to stem a loss of membership. Earlier this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported union membership at 11.3% of the workforce, the lowest level in nearly a century.
“To be blunt, our basic system of workplace representation is failing to meet the needs of America’s workers by every critical measure,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
The most prominent tactic has played out with hundreds of workers at McDonald’s and other QSR chains walking off their jobs to strike for better pay and the right to unionize. They are demanding wages of $15 an hour, more than twice the federal minimum wage ($7.25).
According to The Journal Gazette, the recent strikes in New York, Chicago, and Detroit are being coordinated by worker centers that are comprised of nonprofit organizations including unions, clergy and other advocacy groups. While they are not technically labor groups, they receive funding and training from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other unions.
“Our primary goal is to help workers boost wages,” said SEIU President Mary Kay Henry. “We think a key part of that is helping workers form organizations where they can directly bargain for wages with their employers.”
Business groups are increasingly worried, maintaining that the organizations are “union fronts” designed to operate outside of labor laws so they can avoid restrictions on picketing and boycotting. House Republicans wrote a letter to the Labor Department last week asking officials whether the groups need to abide by labor laws.
“An advantage of these groups is they allow unions to gain entry into a bloc of workers without them realizing this is just a front for a traditional union,” said Glenn Spencer, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative.
The number of worker centers has jumped from just five in the 1990s to more than 200 today.