@ISIDEWITHQuestionseconomy10yrs ago

Do you believe labor unions help or hurt the economy?

Labor unions represent workers in many industries in the United States. Their role is to bargain over wages, benefits, working conditions for their membership. Larger unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level.

▲ 32 Answer Discuss Knowledge check •••+ My feed React Report Follow

Answer Overview

Response rates from 5.7k Norway voters.

71% Help	29% Hurt
57% Help	27% Hurt
10% Help, but ban their ability to make political donations	2% Hurt, I support some private unions but am strongly against public unions
4% Help, in theory but have recently become corrupt and should have their powers limited

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Latest News

Stay up-to-date on the most recent “Labor Unions” news articles, updated frequently.

@ISIDEWITH submitted…6mos6MO

Gaza War Opens Divisions In Left-Wing Unions

Since last fall, many rank-and-file union members have been outspoken in their criticism of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,000 people and took about 250 hostages. The leaders of many national unions have appeared more cautious, at times emphasizing the precipitating role of Hamas.The leaders, who are generally elected, may reflect the views of most of the 10 percent of U.S. workers who belong to unions. But that percentage has been dwindling for decades. By contrast, the portion of the labor movement that has been growing rapidly in recent years — Starbucks baristas, REI workers, graduate students, medical residents — skews young and to the left, precisely the demographic that cares most about the war in Gaza.“Insofar as the new energy is about those young people — and it mostly is — part of what comes with that is Gaza being a high priority,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist who studies labor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.Members of teachers’ unions have also parted company with their parent union. At the American Federation of Teachers convention this summer, when some members sought to amend the resolution on Gaza so it would call for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel, the convention’s chair did not allow the motion to go forward.

@SomberPony from Minnesota submitted…6mos6MO

Boeing Union Goes on Strike, Halting 737 Production

Boeing biggest labor union went on strike, halting production of its best-selling jets and dealing the latest blow to the struggling aerospace giant. Thousands of machinists who build Boeing’s 737, 777 and 767 jets walked off the job shortly after midnight Pacific time Friday, after rejecting a labor deal struck between the union’s leaders and Boeing’s executives. The contract offered 25% wage increases over four years. Union leaders of the 33,000-member International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers chapter said about 94% of their members voted to reject the contract and 96% voted to go on strike. The officials said they would seek to return to the negotiating table with the company.The strike will deal a financial blow when Boeing is bleeding cash and piling up debt following January’s Alaska Airlines accident in which a door plug blew off a 737 MAX jetliner in midair. A prolonged stoppage threatens to further strain the industry’s supply chain and exacerbate jet shortages for airlines. Boeing shares fell roughly 4% in premarket trading.

@ISIDEWITH submitted…3mos3MO

Volkswagen Faces Explosive Strikes Over Plant Closures and Job Cuts

Tens of thousands of Volkswagen workers will participate Monday in strikes at plants across Germany, labor union IG Metall said, marking the largest walkouts at the carmaker’s domestic operations since 2018.The walkouts, which are planned to last several hours, follow weeks of collective bargaining negotiations during which VW refused to rule out mass layoffs and potential plant closures in its home market — drastic measures the company says are necessary to prop up its fortunes amid competition from China and weaker European demand.A so-called “peace obligation” between workers and the company, which prohibited industrial action, expired on Saturday, allowing strikes to take place from Sunday at virtually all of Volkswagen’s German factories.“If necessary, this will become the toughest wage dispute Volkswagen has ever seen,” IG Metall’s chief negotiator Thorsten Groeger said in a statement Sunday. “How long and intense this dispute will be is Volkswagen’s responsibility at the negotiating table.”“Volkswagen has set our collective bargaining agreements on fire, and instead of extinguishing this fire during three rounds of negotiations, the management board keeps throwing open barrels of gasoline onto it,” he added.The walkouts will be the first large-scale strikes that Volkswagen has faced since 2018, according to IG Metall, when 50,000 workers idled plants over pay. Although the work stoppages will last only a few hours, it is possible that 24-hour warning strikes could be called later this year. Indefinite strikes could also be called as a last resort, but only after members have been consulted again, IG Metall said.The strikes represent a fresh headache for Europe’s largest automaker, which saw operating profit for the first nine months of the year tumble by a fifth from the previous year, as its flagship brand struggled. Vehicle sales also slipped on particularly weak demand in China, where it is losing market share to Chinese electric vehicle brands.

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@ISIDEWITH submitted…5mos5MO

California bans legacy admissions at private colleges

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill prohibiting private nonprofit colleges from granting admission advantages to students whose parents donated or attended the same school on Monday.The law impacts a few private universities that still consider family connections in admissions. USC, Stanford, Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd colleges were among those that still embraced the practice, according to the Los Angeles Times.“In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work. The California Dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly,” Newsom said in a statement.California State universities and the University of California system don’t practice legacy admissions, the latter having done away with the practice in 1998.Though California has made legacy and donor admissions illegal, there is no specific punishment for universities violating it, according to the bill’s current text, aside from California’s Department of Justice posting “the names of the independent institutions of higher education that violate the prohibition on its internet website by the next fiscal year.”An earlier version of the bill would have forced colleges to pay money matching the amount they received in Cal Grant payments if the rules were violated.

▲ 127 replies

@ISIDEWITH submitted…3mos3MO

Mexican Shuts Down 2 Migrant Caravans After Trump Threat

Mexican immigration authorities have broken up two small migrant caravans headed to the U.S. border, activists said Saturday.Some migrants were bused to cities in southern Mexico, and others were offered transit papers.The action comes a week after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to slap 25% tariffs on Mexican products unless the country does more to stem the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.On Wednesday, Trump wrote that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had agreed to stop unauthorized migration across the border into the United States. Sheinbaum wrote on her social media accounts the same day that “migrants and caravans are taken care of before they reach the border.”Migrant rights activist Luis García Villagrán said the breaking-up of the two caravans appeared to be part of “an agreement between the president of Mexico and the president of the United States.”The first of the caravans started out from the southern Mexico city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, on Nov. 5, the day Trump was elected. At its height it had about 2,500 people. In almost four weeks of walking, it had gone about 270 miles (430 kilometers) to Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca.In Tehuantepec, Mexican immigration officials offered the tired migrants free bus rides to other cities in southern or central Mexico.“They took some of us to Acapulco, others to Morelia, and others from our group to Oaxaca city,” said Bárbara Rodríguez, an opposition supporter who left her native Venezuela after that country's contested presidential elections earlier this year.Rodríguez said by telephone she later caught a bus on her own to Mexico City.In a statement Saturday, the National Immigration Institute said the migrants voluntary accepted bus rides “to various areas where there is medical assistance and where their migratory status will be reviewed,” and said “upon accepting (the rides), they said they no longer wanted to face the risks along their way.”

▲ 511 replies

@ISIDEWITH submitted…3wks3W

Trump Calls On Palestinians To Leave Gaza

Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights CouncilThe order also prohibits future US funding to UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees)US funding to UNRWA was already suspended under Biden in 2024 following Israeli allegations about employee involvement in October 7 attacksPrevious investigations, led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some "neutrality related issues" but noted Israel hadn't provided evidence for its main allegationThis marks Trump's second withdrawal from both UNRWA funding and the UN Human Rights CouncilTrump previously cut UNRWA funding in 2018, which Biden restored in 2021Similarly, Trump left the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, with Biden rejoining three years laterTrump stated Palestinians have "no alternative but to leave Gaza"He suggested Jordan and Egypt should take displaced PalestiniansThe announcement included continued Ukraine aid and increased support for Israel and Egypt

▲ 1714 replies1 disagree

@ISIDEWITH submitted…4mos4MO

Democrats Under Fire: Congressman Warns Party Is Losing the American Dream to the “Woke Left”

Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi wrote today:"In this election, Americans have made their voice clear: Democrats need to focus more on issues Americans care about, like wages and benefits, and less on being politically correct. Moderate White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, union, non-union, and other voters fear that the world we live in and the values we live by are under threat, and Democrats have been too intimidated to speak up for the same values that many of us hold dear — the American Dream, public safety and a common sense of right and wrong among them. Many Americans are simply afraid of "the Left" more than they are afraid of what President Trump will do. While some Democrats effectively responded to Republican's claims of chaos at the Southern border, we still ceded too much ground to the Republicans on an issue we could have won. And we failed as a party to respond to the Republican weaponization of anarchy on college campuses, defund the police, biological boys playing in girls' sports, and a general attack on traditional values. Going forward, we need to make the case every day that we will fight to give everyone a fair shake and that America is for everybody. We cannot get wrapped around the axle by our base and resistance politics."

▲ 4420 replies1 agree

Active 1hr ago

@ISIDEWITH asked…13yrs13Y

Do you support the legalization of same sex marriage?

On June 26, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the denial of marriage licenses violated the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The ruling made same sex marriage legal in all 50 U.S. States.

▲ 321k12k replies

Active 28mins ago

@ISIDEWITH submitted…1hr1H

21 DOGE Workers Quit: "Constitution Over Musk"

21 workers from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have resigned collectively.The workers cited an inability to "honor commitments" to serve Americans and uphold the Constitution.DOGE was previously known as the United States Digital Service, established under Barack Obama.Elon Musk sent a government-wide email asking federal employees to list their weekly accomplishments.The email required approximately 5 bullet points of accomplishments and to copy managers.FBI Director Kash Patel and other Trump administration officials instructed employees not to respond.Musk initially warned that ignoring the email would be considered a resignation.Musk later stated that non-responders were given "another chance" at President Trump's "discretion."He warned that future non-compliance would result in "termination."The U.S. Digital Service described itself as representing diverse backgrounds and identities.

▲ 2124 replies

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