Thu, 01/21/2021
The Coronavirus Pandemic has shown us the extent to which large corporations in America will prioritize profit over people. As the pandemic devastated small businesses and plunged millions of Americans into poverty over the past year, large corporations are flourishing. With few exceptions, big businesses are having a very different year from most of the country. Between April and September, one of the most tumultuous economic stretches in modern history, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded U.S. companies turned a profit, a Washington Post analysis found. The data reveals a split screen inside many big companies this year. On one side, corporate leaders are touting their success and casting themselves as leaders on the road to economic recovery. On the other, many of their firms have put Americans out of work and used their profits to increase the wealth of shareholders.
In response, workers have increasingly turned to union organizing to protect themselves from their employers.
For example, on January 4th, more than 400 Google engineers and other workers formed a union, capping years of growing activism at one of the world’s largest companies and presenting a rare beachhead for labor organizers in staunchly anti-union Silicon Valley. The union’s creation is highly unusual for the tech industry, which has long resisted efforts to organize its work force. It follows increasing demands by employees at Google for policy overhauls on pay, harassment and ethics, and is likely to escalate tensions with top leadership. The new union, called the Alphabet Workers Union after Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was organized in secret for the better part of a year and elected its leadership last month.
In the non-profit industry, the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has opted to form a union making it one of the most high-profile nonprofit organizations to unionize in recent years amid a surge of organizing among younger workers in cities. The union, which is calling itself ACLU Staff United, will cover about 300 employees, mostly staff attorneys, communications personnel, organizers, and campaign strategists at ACLU offices in New York, Washington, San Francisco and Raleigh, N.C.
This pandemic has laid bare the inequities baked into the U.S. economic system, and the vulnerability of workers. Though devastating, the silver lining is that American workers are learning that they are not powerless, and that organization and solidarity by banding together in a union can lead to improved working conditions, pay and quality of life.
For more information on your rights to join a union, visit https://www.mselaborlaw.com/resources/unions.
