Union members not only earn higher median wages; they are more likely to have paid sick leave, short-term disability, and employer-provided child care. Giving people a voice at work - the ability to organize and negotiate for their fair share of the value they helped create - is absolutely essential to a growing, vibrant middle class.
We need to do more to support working families, like guarantee access to paid sick and parental leave and make sure every parent has access to quality, affordable child care.
On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act. Its enactment, following the longest continuous debate in the history of the U.S. Senate, enshrined into law the basic principle upon which our country was founded - that all people are created equal.
It was a privilege to serve as the assistant attorney general for civil rights, a role that allowed me to enforce the Civil Rights Act and help make its promise a reality.
Budgets are moral documents. They reflect the values of any government and when you're compromising clean air, clean water, and lead, you're making a statement about communities you don't care about.
Under the leadership of President Obama and a whole host of partners, including nonprofits, foundations, and advocates, the Department of Labor has made historic investments in community colleges, apprenticeships, coding boot camps, and summer jobs.
Economically Targeted Investing, or ETI, refers to the practice of selecting investments, in part, for their collateral benefits in addition to the investment return for the retirement plan.
Civil rights activists and union activists shared not just common values and objectives but also common enemies.
Tampa Electric has used apprenticeships since 1978 to make sure its workforce is the best in the business - trained, prepared, and productive. Apprenticeships improve its bottom line and give the company a competitive advantage.
The Democratic Party and DNC have to be a very conspicuous face of the opposition to Donald Trump and all his divisiveness. At the same time, we have to communicate our, I think, positive and inclusive message to everyone.
Misclassification is a serious problem in construction as well as other industries, and it is exacerbated by increasingly fissured employment structures where work is contracted and subcontracted away from the core company.
We need to be focused in corporate America on the long term.
Costco pays their workers good wages with benefits while selling good products at competitive prices and remaining quite profitable.
King had come to Memphis to lend his moral authority to the struggle of striking municipal sanitation workers who were overwhelmingly African-American. They earned poverty wages, endured degrading working conditions, and faced brutal beatings when they tried to organize.
Dr. King's last campaign was a labor struggle. Many people are aware that King was assassinated in Memphis in the spring of 1968. Less well-known is what drew him there: solidarity with city sanitation workers, who, without the benefit of union representation, were rising up to protest humiliating pay and deplorable working conditions.
We need to enact comprehensive immigration reform, to bring people out of the shadows and empower them to more fully and freely participate in their communities and the economy. And we need to invest in our nation's deteriorating infrastructure - investments that would create jobs and benefit all sectors of the economy.
The overtime rule was frankly diluted in 2004 by a regulation put in place by the Bush administration.
Workers are baking the pie of prosperity, but they're not sharing in those dividends. That's unfair.
My parents, fleeing a repressive regime in the Dominican Republic, were embraced by this country and taught us to love it in return. After my father served proudly in the U.S. Army, they settled in Buffalo, N.Y., and were able to live the American Dream.
On Veterans Day, I can't help think of my uncles who volunteered for the service after fleeing a brutal regime in the Dominican Republic. They hadn't been in America long, but they were already so grateful for its opportunities that they were eager to serve.
