Whats So Important about the Labor Movement?
Middle-class working families are losing ground. We’re losing health care, retirement security and jobs. We in the labor movement know that it’s no coincidence that the decline in the well-being of middle-income families, the decline in the number of families actually able to move up the economic ladder, is directly tied to the decline of collective bargaining. Note that I did not say decline of unions. The deterioration of the middle-class standard of living that working families enjoyed in the past is a direct result of the loss in the country of real bargaining rights by workers. That’s why my union and others are working so hard to restore workers’ rights by restoring labor law that really works. We don’t have that now, but with a lot of hard work and the right people elected to office, we can get it. CWA’s President Larry Cohen is a key force behind this drive for real bargaining rights. Some of you may even have heard him say that it doesn’t matter what unions workers join — that
