Nearly half of the workers expected to see a wage increase under the bill are Latino, and 75% are women, according to a report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
As Labor Day rolls by during a momentous surge in worker organizing, here are some lessons on building a strong contract campaign, according to McAlevey.
As Ken Jacobs and Michael Reich of the UC Berkeley Labor Center determined, however, the loopholes written into the measure — exemptions for driver waiting time, underpayments for gas, vehicle wear and tear and insurance, and the cost of Social Security and Medicare taxes — reduced the actual hourly compensation for Uber and Lyft drivers to an average of $5.64 an hour.
The administration estimates that 3.4 million workers will benefit from the change. Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, said he expected the fast-food and retail industries where supervisory wages are low to be affected the most.
The goal of the UC Labor Summer is to usher in a new generation of college-educated workers, equipped with a knowledge of labor rights that can reshape their workplaces and support California’s labor movement for years to come.
“Sometimes there’s this assumption that, ‘Oh, college kids are being supported by their parents,’” Mahones said. “But that’s not always the case.”
The labor organizer Jane McAlevey has this great argument in one of her books about how sometimes the best union leaders are the ones who start out in strongest opposition, only to later realize their loyalties have been in the wrong place. It’s amazing that one of the most exciting battles in “Andor” doesn’t involve any X-Wings. It’s a work stoppage.
“This is one of the drawbacks of having a healthcare system that is tied to employment,” said Laurel Lucia, healthcare program director at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “We saw during the pandemic, when there were furloughs or layoffs, people lost job-based coverage when they needed it most.”
According to estimates by UCLA and UC Berkeley, Altman said, almost half a million Californians have employer-sponsored coverage that is less affordable than what they will be able to obtain now on Covered California. An additional 87,000 Californians who could be helped by the new rule are uninsured today, and about 35,000 have policies that aren’t currently subsidized.
“Social Security is a bedrock,” Nari Rhee, director of UC Berkeley Labor Center’s Retirement Security Program, testified at a federal hearing last year. But “the current average benefit of $1,500 a month is insufficient to cover basic needs for most retirees, given the cost of living.”
“I think that creating a more sustainable economy creates good-paying jobs for workers who already have those skills,” said Enrique Lopezlira, a labor economist at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
A study by the UCLA and UC Berkeley labor centers found almost two-thirds of fast-food workers have experienced wage theft, and more than half have faced health and safety hazards on the job. Of the workers who raised concerns with their employers, about a third reported that their employer did nothing to resolve the issue, while 25% experienced retaliation, the study found.
Just 21% of California workers operating home-based day cares reported having some form of retirement savings, according to the center. Comparatively, 46% of Californians working in the private sector have a retirement plan, according to a report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
“The thing that really struck us is how this is a very modest proposal,” Jacobs said. “The costs are extraordinarily small for very meaningful benefits for the families who gain higher wages.”
“It makes it so it’s very disheartening to take away these extra subsidies that have been really crucial in improving affordability for folks,” Miranda Dietz said.
Miranda Dietz, a research and policy associate at UC Berkeley Labor Center, said the significant increase in the number of Californians with health insurance over the last two years would be in jeopardy without the federal subsidies.
One hurdle CalSavers faces, Rhee said, is making small employers aware of the June 30 deadline. They need to be told what their obligations are, she said, but they’re the hardest group to reach.
“We have a fairly tight labor market right now and low unemployment,” said Jessie Hammerling, a researcher at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “And I think that helps give workers greater confidence to stand up.”
Here’s the truth: Truck drivers, notably the short-haul drivers who carry goods from the ports to regional warehouses or other transportation depots, are among the most abused workers in our economy.
According to a 2019 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, more than 60% of private sector workers in this state who were 25 to 64 years old had no company-supplied plan to build savings for retirement by deferring some income (as in a pension) or redirecting part of their paychecks into investments (as in a 401(k) plan).
The rise to a $15 hourly wage has had a “real, measurable effect on workers’ pay in the state,” said Ken Jacobs. Still, “costs have continued to rise.”
Annette Bernhardt, Lisa Kresge, and Reem Suleiman of the UC Berkeley Labor Center argue that companies should be required to reveal “which activities will be monitored, the method of monitoring, the data that will be gathered, the times and places where the monitoring will occur, and the purpose for monitoring and why it is necessary.”
Carol Zabin said she and her team — which included a chemical safety expert — found little difference between the cost of a solar system installed by a firm using certified electricians and a firm not using certified electricians.
A study by UC Berkeley’s Labor Center projected that the added subsidies will enable 135,000 Californians to obtain insurance in 2022, and would cut the costs faced by an additional 1.5 million enrollees — about 150,000 of whom had not qualified for subsidies before because their incomes were above the previous cutoff.
“Is it strong enough to build the momentum to win some part of labor law reform that would allow for greater success in organizing?” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. “That’s the real question.”
