Political Appeal of Bashing American Unions May Have Peaked
Unions might never recover the strength they had decades ago, but recent signs suggest renewed support for labor, or at least an end to its run as a Republican bogeyman.
After building a campaign around his battle with government workers, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker abruptly ended his presidential campaign Sept. 21. His decision came a month after a Gallup Poll found that support for unions jumped 5 percentage points in the past year to its highest level nationwide since 2008.
“People are waking up and realizing that unions are important to establishing balance in our economy,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “People are very anxious about what’s happening to the American middle class. And income inequality is at an all-time high.”
Women Support
In recent weeks, labor organizations have seen concrete advances after years of bad news. Days after Walker’s exit, workers at an Alabama truck-parts factory voted 2-to-1 to join the United Automobile Workers after years of organizing failures throughout the South. In Missouri, Republican legislators on Sept. 16 fell a dozen votes short of overturning Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of a right-to-work bill.
Public approval of unions is up 10 percentage points since 2008, to 58 percent, according to the Gallup survey released Aug. 17. Women and people ages 18 to 34 provided the strongest support.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-28/political-appeal-of-bashing-american-unions-may-have-peaked
= new reply since forum marked as read
