New data reveals how unions benefit communities, consumers, employers, and employees

As the assault on workers' rights reaches a fever pitch, positive messages about unions are few and far between. To push back against this trend, American Rights at Work Education Fund has produced and funded five new reports revealing that the benefits of workers' collective action extend far beyond themselves—and even beyond their workplace. Topline findings from these reports have been compiled in our latest release, Beyond the Weekend.

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A new study from American Rights at Work compares the "Workplace Rights Policy" of National Express Group, Durham’s parent company, to internationally accepted standards for workers' rights, and finds that the company's policy falls far short of protecting its employees' freedom of association and other fundamental rights on the job. On the contrary, the policy selectively includes only the rights that serve the interests of management and provides cover for the company's aggressive anti-union campaigns.

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Michael Wasser, Research and Communications Associate, American Rights at Work
October 2011

In American Rights at Work Education Fund's new report, Partnerships in Education: How Labor-Management Collaboration Is Transforming Public Schools, we highlight strong labor- management partnerships between teachers’ unions and administrations that are transforming schools in communities from coast to coast. For these students, collective bargaining has provided a path for their teachers and administrators to work together to find solutions and create opportunities. And their success points to the urgent need to protect teachers’ right to collectively bargain—not just for the sake of a dwindling middle class, but for students and their communities, too.

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The attack on pensions over the past few years ignores the fact that these funds not only provide for a decent retirement after decades of hard work; they serve as a powerful source of capital that drives our economy. In this brief, we shine the light on one small fraction of these investments. Pension fund investment of billions of dollars in construction funds and real estate trusts have brought solid, competitive returns while also providing over a hundred thousand good, family-supporting jobs for communities in the last 15 years alone. In this way, our analysis serves as a perspective on the way workers' dollars can be harnessed fully for the good of workers and their communities, and shows that strategies to slash pensions are short-sighted and cut off a path toward economic prosperity.

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Michael Wasser, Research and Communications Associate, American Rights at Work
March 2011