We launched Your Union, Your Voice in 2019 because we wanted to make sure your priorities were reflected at every level of our union’s work. Feedback from that effort shaped the work we’ve taken on since then.
We’re excited to update you on how far we’ve come since then.
Click here to RSVP for a town hall near you. |
We’ve scheduled more than 150 town hall meetings across the country that will be happening this Spring.
All members, retirees and families are welcome to attend to hear about the wins we’ve achieved and discuss the work still ahead on our core issues: retirement security, workers’ rights, health care, trade and job security, domestic economic issues and workplace safety.
We’ll also be asking attendees what their priorities are again, so I hope you’ll be able to join us.
You can find a town hall near you at: uswvoices.org.
In Solidarity,
USW International President
We Need the Build Back Better Act. Our Senators need to hear from us.
For decades, Rapid Response has been built around educating and activating our members about issues that impact us in the workplace. When we see policies that will impact our core issues - collective bargaining, safety and health, job security, retirement security, domestic economic issues, and health care – we engage.
The Build Back Better Act is one of those policies.
- Collective Bargaining – Build Back Better increases penalties for unfair labor practices up to $100k to provide an actual disincentive to law-breaking companies. The bill also includes up to $250 in a tax deduction for all union workers, even if they don’t itemize deductions.
- Safety and Health – Build Back Better provides more meaningful penalties for employers who put our safety at risk by raising penalties for willful violations from $70k to $700k and penalties for serious violations from $5k to $50k.
- Job Security – The bill provides $20 billion for workforce development. It also contains over $80 billion in grants, loans, and tax credits to invest in updating, modernizing, retooling, and building manufacturing facilities in the United States. That means capital investment in our employers that won’t cut into our wages and benefits.
- Domestic Economic Issues - In addition to Buy America provisions, the Build Back Better Act contains Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) improvements that extend and expand TAA, which helps workers who have lost their jobs due to bad trade policies. The Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) is increased to 80% and made permanent. These are both issues we have had to fight to keep or improve every single budget year.
- Health Care –This bill would provide for changes to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to give guaranteed paid weeks to care for yourself or a loved one, something we’ve always had to bargain for. Medicare would be expanded to incorporate hearing benefits, creating a dramatic savings for those who spent years in factories supplying America and suffered hearing loss. It also includes caps on insulin prices, which has a direct impact on our insurance prices.
We can’t let this opportunity slip by.
Legislators from both parties need to hear why this bill is important to our union and our families. Call your Senators and tell them it’s time to put politics aside and put the middle class first.
Senate Toll-Free Number:
(Remember to make two calls to be connected to both your Senators.)
1-877-607-0785
Tell them who you are, where you are from, and that they need to continue to work to pass the Build Back Better Act.
The PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act is a generational opportunity and the cornerstone of the AFL-CIO’s Workers First Agenda.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the PRO Act in 2020 and again in 2021, but an anti-worker majority has blocked it in the Senate.
The PRO Act motivated us this past election cycle to mobilize for a pro-worker trifecta in the U.S. House, Senate and White House. Working people won a mandate. America must build back better with unions by ensuring passage of the PRO Act: Reintroducing the PRO Act, passing it in both chambers of Congress, and getting President Biden's signature will increase worker power, rebuild our economy fairly and grow America’s labor movement.
Our woefuly outdated labor laws are no longer effective as a means for working people to have our voices heard. Inequality has skyrocketed because union membership has dwindled and policymakers have failed to pass pro-worker labor laws. The stated purpose of the National Labor Relations Act is to encourage collective bargaining, but nearly every amendment to the law—most egregiously the 1947 Taft–Hartley Act—has made it more difficult for workers to form unions. Anti-worker judges also have tried to whittle away what is left of our rights. The PRO Act will change the power dynamics in America and give working people a real say in our future.
The PRO Act is the most significant worker empowerment legislation since the Great Depression because it will:
Empower workers to exercise our freedom to organize and bargain.
Ensure that workers can reach a first contract quickly after a union is recognized.
End employers’ practice of punishing striking workers by hiring permanent replacements. Speaking up for labor rights is within every worker’s rights —and workers shouldn’t lose our jobs for it.
Hold corporations accountable by strengthening the National Labor Relations Board and allowing it to penalize employers who retaliate against working people in support of the union or collective bargaining.
Repeal “right to work” laws—divisive and racist laws created during the Jim Crow era—that leads to lower wages, fewer benefits and more dangerous workplaces.
Create pathways for workers to form unions, without fear, in newer industries like Big Tech.
The PRO Act will make America's economy work for working people.
When union membership is greater, our wages are better. Between 1948 and 1973, when New Deal era laws expanded and enforced collective bargaining, hourly wages rose by more than 90%.
Over the next 40 years—from 1973 to 2013—hourly wages rose by just over 9% while productivity increased 74%.
Workers are not getting paid a fair share of what we produce.
The PRO Act is more than labor law reform, it's civil rights legislation.
A union contract is the single best tool we have to close racial and gender wage gaps, and to ensure dignity and due process for workers, regardless of where we were born, who we are or what industry we work in.
Removing barriers to organizing and bargaining is important for all workers, especially those who have been marginalized.
Expanding collective bargaining will increase protections for women, people of color, immigrants and the LGBTQ community in areas where our laws are still falling short.
Workers in America favor unions and tens of millions want to join one.
Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows more than 60 million people would vote to join a union today if given the opportunity. That is nearly half of nonunion workers.
Union density rose in 2020 amid the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and the failed federal response to it.
Gallup found that union approval stands at 65%, one of the highest marks in a half-century.
This is just the first step of the Worker's First Agenda.
Working people elected pro-worker candidates on Election Day, including the most pro-worker president in recent history. Now we need to win our Workers First Agenda.
As a candidate, President Biden pledged to sign the PRO Act into law. After he was elected, Biden said, “Unions are going to have increased power.” As the president put it, worker power is “not anti-business. It's about creating economic growth [and] creating good-paying jobs.”
Lawmakers gave us their word that the PRO Act would be a top priority. Now it is time for action.
The PRO Act is how our laws catch up, with workers embracing collective action with a fervor not seen in generations.
