In the United States, the labor movement is coming back to life after years of decline and is affecting more and more sectors: fast food, care, retail. Employees in these fields, often young and qualified, unionize and constitute a real social movement. Official requests for union recognition have increased by more than 60% this year. Jordan Davis met these fresh and new union members for Democracy! Democracy!
This new generation at work no longer hesitates to put its financial security at risk to improve everyone’s salary conditions. A courageous position in the face of employers who practice unfair dismissal and lengthy procedures to discourage the creation of unions.
Fortunately, the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB, a federal agency founded in 1935, sees to the smooth running of these processes, despite the lack of staff, just like current trade unionists who see these young people as the renewal and the future of the movement. American union:
Why does an automotive employee earn $55 an hour, and a service employee $15 to $20? It’s simply because the first has been unionized for 70 years and the other has not. Young people today are turning to the labor movement much like their grandparents did in the 1930s. They hold out hope for a life where they can raise a family, buy a home, and have a decent retirement. The workers at Starbucks tell me all the time that this is the first time in their lives that they have hope.
Hope, the word is symbolically strong, like this young woman who branched off from her nursing studies to political science following a union fight in the company where she worked to pay for her studies. .
So, between the understaffed NLRB, the threats of dismissal and the challenges of employers and their lawyers, will this new generation have the courage to defend their rights?
This week, we find Jordan Davis, correspondent for the RTS in Washington, on the front line of a new social movement: trade unionism among young people, to discover in this 10th episode.
>> This 10th episode of “Democracy! Democracy!” is to listen icias well as on all the usual streaming platforms:
“Democracy! Democracy!”, episode 10 written by Jordan Davis, directed by Mathieu Ballmer and produced by Magali Philip, production assistant Josiane Perret.
Next episode of “Democracy! Democracy!” scheduled for September 23.