Melissa Greenberg is a student at Harvard Law School.
A new Gallup Poll finds that 61 percent of Americans reported that they approve of labor unions. This approval rating is five percentage points higher than last year’s approval rating and the highest approval rating since 2003. 39 percent of Americans believe that labor unions should have more “influence” in politics. However, the poll’s findings are not all positive. 46 percent of Americans think union power is declining.
The Wall Street Journal reports that labor activists and representatives from the United States and Canada plan to utilize the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement to pressure Mexico to increase wages. Labor supporters argue that Mexico’s paltry wages are hindering its economic growth and creating an uneven playing field for the United States and Canada. The Mexican minimum wage is just $4.50 a day. Despite the existence of laws aimed at protecting workers, labor advocates argue that these laws are ineffective because of inadequate enforcement. The United States plans to ask for better enforcement and increased protections for workers, including better protection for union organizing and strikes. The article points to numerous factors that contribute to the country’s low wages, but labor advocates emphasized the role of weak Mexican unions in contributing to Mexican workers’ low pay.
Yesterday, the British government revealed its plan to curb the disparity between executive compensation and the average worker’s pay through increased transparency. While this disparity is not as great in Britain as in America, the average CEO of the FTSE 100—Britain’s leading stock exchange— earned 129 times the pay of a “regular employee.” The government’s plan includes a requirement that all public companies publicize the ratio between their CEO’s compensation and their average employee’s pay and mandates the creation of “a register that ‘names and shames’ firms that faced shareholder opposition over executive pay levels.” The New York Times has more here.
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April 28
WA strike bill goes to governor; MLBPA discloses legal expenses; Ex-Twitter employees seek class certification against Musk.
April 27
Judge thwarts Trump's attempt to strip federal workers' labor rights; AFGE to cut over half of its staff; Harvard unions rally amid attacks.
April 24
NLRB seeks to compel Amazon to collectively bargain with San Francisco warehouse workers, DoorDash delivery workers and members of Los Deliveristas Unidos rally for pay transparency, and NLRB takes step to drop lawsuit against SpaceX over the firing of employees who criticized Elon Musk.
April 22
DOGE staffers eye NLRB for potential reorganization; attacks on federal workforce impact Trump-supporting areas; Utah governor acknowledges backlash to public-sector union ban
April 21
Bryan Johnson’s ULP saga before the NLRB continues; top law firms opt to appease the EEOC in its anti-DEI demands.
April 20
In today’s news and commentary, the Supreme Court rules for Cornell employees in an ERISA suit, the Sixth Circuit addresses whether the EFAA applies to a sexual harassment claim, and DOGE gains access to sensitive labor data on immigrants. On Thursday, the Supreme Court made it easier for employees to bring ERISA suits when their […]