President Tim Burga Discusses the State of the Labor Movement on NPR
Since the height of the pandemic, working people are realizing their collective power to protect them on the job and in providing a voice in wages, hours and benefits. In 2022, Gallup conducted a poll that shows unions are at an all-time high in favorability at 71%. That favorability is validated as workers are organizing into a union and winning elections in diverse sectors of the economy.
Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga joined NPR's Anne Fisher and guests Lauren Kaori Gurley, labor reporter for The Washington Post and Michael LaFaive, Senior Director of Fiscal Policy, Mackinac Center for Public Policy to discuss the current state of the labor movement in Ohio and around the country.
In fact, Ohio ranked third in the country in the number of new union members, as 52,000 new workers became a part of organized labor in 2022.
"Unions play a vital role, whether it's bargaining for better wages, better working conditions or better scheduling. But also, in the event the worker and employer don't see eye-to-eye, you have a grievance procedure outlined in the collective bargaining agreement that frankly is good for both the worker and the employer. With laws to back up unionization, all workers and society at-large have benefited since the National Labor Relations Act was passed in the 1930s and since Ohio’s public employee collective bargaining law was codified in the 1980s," said Burga during the interview.