September 3, 2024

The thing about Labor Day (and other holidays that offer three-day weekends) is that if you do it right, you might come back to more work tasks and less time to do them. 

Still, for the time some of us are blessed to have with loved ones, grilling out and avoiding family scuffles at the cookout's communal dominoes table, we owe a debt to labor organizations and movements of the 20th century.

From the five-day work week to anti-discrimination provisions, rights that unions fought for on behalf of their members have been extended to most workers.

Despite a steady decline in union membership that started in the middle of the last century, particularly in the South, labor organizations continue to wield significant political influence and have grown in popularity in recent years. 

This week, we'll tell you about the 10,000 hotel workers who went on strike this week and talk about the latest in labor trends.

Lastly, Reckon True Stories delves into a labor subject we don't often think about: Art. 

Let's talk about it.

UNITED HERE...THERE... EVERYWHERE

More than 10,000 workers at 25 U.S. hotels were on strike Monday after choosing Labor Day weekend to amplify their demands for higher pay, fairer workloads and the reversal of COVID-era cuts.

The UNITE HERE union, which represents the striking housekeepers and other hospitality workers, said 200 workers at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor were the latest to walk off the job.

Nearly half of the striking workers – or 5,000 – are in Honolulu. 

Thousands of workers are also on strike in Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and San Jose, California. The strikes targeting Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotels were set to last one to three days.

UNITE HERE said a total of 15,000 workers have voted to authorize strikes, which could soon spread to other cities, including New Haven, Connecticut; Oakland, California; and Providence, Rhode Island.

Union President Gwen Mills says the strikes are part of long-standing battle to secure family-sustaining compensation for service workers on par with more traditionally male-dominated industries.

“Hospitality work overall is undervalued, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s disproportionately women and people of color doing the work,” Mills said.

Data points were made

According to information from the U.S. Department of Labor published in January 2024, the rate of membership in labor unions in 2023 was 10%, which was flat from the previous year. That also  means that union membership did not experience a decline as has been the case since the 1970s.

Here are a few other points of note about unions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Treasury Department and other sources:

—The total number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions was 14.4 million in 2023 compared to 1983, when the union membership rate was 20.1% with 17.7 million union workers (BLS)

—The union membership rate for government workers was 32.5%, more than quintuple the rate for private-sector workers at 6.0% (BLS)

—Local government had the highest union membership rate of 38.4%; occupations such as law enforcement officers, firefighters, and teachers dominate (BLS)

—Men have a slightly higher union membership rate (10.5%) than women (9.5%), according to BLS

—Black workers have the highest union membership rate (11.8%) among racial groups, compared to White (9.8%), Asian (7.8%), and Hispanic workers (9.0%), BLS data show

—Nonunion workers earn 86 cents on the dollar compared to union members' median income, $1,090 vs. $1,263 (BLS)

—Hawaii's 24.1% union membership is the nation's highest; the lowest is South Carolina where it's just 2.3% (BLS)

— A 2023 treasury department analysis states that a 1% increase in private-sector union membership correlates with a 0.3% increase in nonunion wages, especially for workers without a college degree (Treasury)

—Union petitions in 2022 reached their highest level since 2015 (Treasury)

—A majority of Americans believe that the decline in union participation is bad with 54% of U.S. adults saying the decline has been bad for the country and 59% saying it has been bad for working people (Pew Research Center)

—Surprising to no one, there are partisan ideological differences on the effect that decreased union participation has had on the country and workers. The majority among older, higher income and white Republicans say the decline of unions has been good for working people (Pew)

—Among Democrats, those with lower incomes and without college degrees tend to have less favorable views of unions while more affluent and college-educated Democrats say unions are better for workers

‘The Work You Do, The Person You Are’

This week on Reckon True Stories, Deesha and Kiese dig into a classic essay by Toni Morrison, “The Work You Do, the Person You Are,” published in The New Yorker in May 2017. They talk about labor and self-identity — how our feelings of worth can become so closely tied to the work we do, in ways that can become unhealthy, both in the corporate world and in the art we create.

Please rate, review and share the episode on Apple podcasts, Spotify and more.

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