Unions improve communities and ALL workers, not just members

In high-union-density states, 2023 median household income was on average more than $12,000 higher than in low-union-density states. Between 1979–2024, median, or midpoint, wages increased more in states where unionization declined less.

In states with higher union densities, the share of people without any form of health insurance was 5.7%; this rate was 9% in states with lower union densities.

States with higher rates of unionization spend substantially more per pupil on education than low-union-density states ($22,777 per pupil vs. $15,568).

About 70% of states with the highest union density have enacted paid sick leave legislation, compared with just 11.8% of low-union-density states.

Since 2021, voter restriction laws passed in low-union-density states seven times as often (44) as in high-union-density states (6).

Note: EPI categorizes union density as the share of workers in a state who are members of a union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement, and averages the data across three years. So “2024” unionization rates are the average, by state, of unionization rates from 2022, 2023 and 2024. EPI uses 1979 as the baseline year because that years was the peak before the steep drop in unionization that began in the 1980s. EPI divided the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia into three equally sized groups based on their current (2022–2024) level of union density. There are 17 states with the highest union density (with 13.4%–25.5% of workers covered); the next 17 states (including D.C.) are “medium-union-density states” (with 8.2%–13.1% of workers covered); and the remaining 17 are “low-union-density states” (with 3.0%–8.1% of workers covered).

However, unions don’t just improve workers’ paychecks. Indeed, rebuilding worker power by strengthening unions is not just good policy—it is a democratic imperative in the face of authoritarian backsliding.

 “Unions also have powerful effects on people’s lives outside of work,” say EPI report authors Celine McNicholas, Margaret Poydock, Heidi Shierholz and Hilary Wething. “They help foster solidarity, promote civic and political engagement, provide reliable information to working-class communities about how economic policies impact their lives, and serve as a counterweight to corporate power in our democracy. Throughout history, unions have been engines of resistance to entrenched and undemocratic power—mobilizing working people to challenge inequality, defend civil rights, and push back against authoritarianism in all its forms.

 “In the same way unions give workers a voice at work, with a direct impact on wages and working conditions, the data suggest that unions also give workers a voice in shaping their communities. They shape the social and political fabric of the communities they operate in, lifting standards for union and nonunion workers alike.

“High union density is consistently associated with a much broader set of positive spillover effects across multiple dimensions: from higher wages and better benefits; to more equitable tax systems; safer workplaces; stronger public services; and healthier, more inclusive democracies,” the report says. “Unions don’t just improve workers’ paychecks—they shape the social and political fabric of the communities they operate in, lifting standards for union and nonunion workers alike, while their political advocacy helps to drive an array of strongly positive outcomes, especially in states where unions represent a sizeable share of the workforce.”

EPI findings show seven key effects of unionization:

* Higher wages and decreased income inequality. On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 12.8% more in wages than a peer in a nonunionized workplace in the same industry with a similar education, occupation and level of experience. But unions don’t just help union workers—they help all workers. Nonunion workers benefit too because unions effectively set broader standards, which nonunion employers must meet to attract and retain the workers they need. (See chart at bottom for the correlation between recent decades’ loss of union density nationwide and the rise of income inequality.)

* Smaller racial wage gaps. Unions have historically reduced wage gaps between Black and white workers. since World War II, Black workers were more likely to be in unions and received a larger wage premium for union membership. Now, Black workers represented by a union are paid 12.6% more than their nonunionized Black peers, and Hispanic workers represented by a union are paid 16.4% more than their nonunionized Hispanic peers.

* Higher wages for women. On average, the wages of women represented by a union are 9.8% higher than those of nonunionized women with comparable characteristics. Further, there is suggestive evidence that within workplaces, union bargaining reduces gender wage gaps.

* Increased government revenue and less need for safety net programs. Unionization has a range of positive economic impacts in addition to decreasing wage inequality and raising wages for historically disadvantaged groups. Unionized workers have more income and therefore pay more taxes. Also, unionized workers need fewer public benefits. Higher incomes let workers and their families be less dependent on government benefits.

* Greater access to employer-sponsored benefits including health insurance, retirement and paid leave. Union workers are far more likely than nonunion workers to be covered by employer-provided health insurance – more than 9 in 10 unionized workers have employer-sponsored health benefits (compared with just 71% of nonunion workers), and union employers contribute more to their employees’ health-care benefits. Furthermore, union employers are more likely to contribute more toward retirement plans than comparable nonunion employers. Union workers are also more likely to have paid sick days, vacation and holidays, more input into the number of hours they work, and more predictable schedules.

* Strengthened health and safety. Union contracts also require safety equipment and empower workers to report unsafe conditions without retaliation. So-called Right-To-Work (“for less”) legislation that weakens unions has been associated with a roughly 14% increase in the rate of occupational fatalities.

* Increased civic engagement and broader community benefits. Beyond wages, benefits and safety, recent scholarship shows the indirect effect unions have on people’s political and personal attitudes and on the broader community and economy as a whole. Union membership reduces white racial resentment, increases political advocacy, specifically related to worker empowerment and economic justice. Conversely, weakening unions significant long-term political and economic effects, such as lower voter turnout, lower organized labor contributions, less voter mobilization, fewer working-class candidates serving in state legislatures and Congress, and less pro-worker state policy.

Again, this August report – https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-arent-just-good-for-workers-they-also-benefit-communities-and-democracy/#full-report outlines a strong correlation between areas’ levels of union density and a range of measurements of economic, personal and democratic well-being. Unions give workers ways to influence our working conditions, which helps people shape their communities, leading to more equitable economic, social and democratic structures.

Peoria's Independent Steelworkers Alliance affiliates with United Steelworkers

In a landslide vote, members of the Independent Steelworkers Alliance in Bartonville on August 7 chose to join the United Steelworkers, becoming ISWA-USW Local 9614.

The members are optimistic about the move, said President Brad Wight Sr., who took office in June.

“It was getting to where we didn’t have the resources we thought we needed,” said Wight, who said after rejecting a proposed settlement with Liberty Steel and Wire, the independent steelworkers in April ratified a two-year extension, set to expire on May 3, 2027.

A meet-and-greet between the company and USW officials was scheduled for Sept. 11, said Wight (pictured).

The new Local will be part of USW District 7, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

 

 

State Labor Dept. busy enforcing labor laws, report shows

Every Labor Day, the Illinois Department of Labor issues an annual report summarizing the agency’s work – and the labor situation the data reflects.

On Sept. 3, the IDOL included dozens of actions, including administering the new Child Labor law and Equal Pay Act on Salary Transparency,  the never-ending protection of the Prevailing Wage Act, and working to ensure workers receive the overtime pay and paid leave to which they’re entitled.

“Last year, IDOL received nearly 9,000 complaints of violations of Illinois wage and hour laws and collected millions of dollars in back wages and penalties for workers,” said IDOL Director Jane Flanagan.

“At a time when federal labor enforcement has diminished and workers’ rights face new threats, this work has never been more vital,” she added.

Indeed, between Executive Orders from the White House and GOP majorities in both houses of Congress, cuts and layoffs to federal labor and safety programs, and a non-working National Labor Relations Board threaten working people and unions. Fortunately, Illinois state lawmakers help Gov. Pritzker ensure Illinois’ labor laws remain robust – and enforced.

Further, Illinois Congressional delegation supports organized labor, according to the AFL-CIO, whose most recent tally of Illinois’ federal lawmakers show a solid block on 10 key issues the labor federation advocated.

U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth earned 100% scores, and 13 of the 14 Democratic House Representatives also scored a 100%. Mike Quigley, from the 5^th District, received an 89%.

Of the 10 issues important to workers that the AFL-CIO tracked, 9 were opposed but passed with Republican votes, such as Illinois’ three GOP Reps. Darin LaHood, Mary Miller and Mike Bost – each of whom score a 0%.

In Springfield, Flanagan said she remained thankful and hopeful.

“I am filled with appreciation for Illinois’ working people and our many public, private, community, union and nonprofit partners whose feedback, input and collaboration make our work possible,” she said. “In Illinois we’re focused on not just enforcing existing workplace rights; we are also on the forefront of advancing them.”

 

 

Looking back at Labor Day in western Illinois

Hundreds of people were on the sidewalks, with kids scrambling from curbs for candy in Galesburg, which took a traditional approach, with a parade lasting about two hours to move down Main Street five blocks. However, the marching unionists and floats were preceded not only by a color guard and a virtual fleet of police and fire fighter vehicles, but six bagpipers and four drummers on the ground, and several biplanes repeatedly soaring overhead.

Area marching bands from Galesburg, Knoxville and ROWVA (with its fine version of “Here Comes the Sun”) were interspersed with the Lions Club, State Sen. Mike Halpin (D-36^th) and a host of union floats, trucks and marchers, including Plumbers and Plasterers, Letter Carriers and Teamsters, AFSCME and Iron Workers, Electrical Workers and Carpenters, plus Operators, Laborers and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees.

In Macomb, union members and supporters took another approach, holding a noon-time rally, which spilled over from Chandler Park to line the block, with dozens of demonstrators protesting President Trump. Below: Thomas and Lynnia Oatman of Lewistown drove to Macomb from Fulton County to lend their voices to a Labor Day rally.

 

 

 

 

Some Peoria community action agency services to go on despite state cuts

Given rising costs for food and utilities, it’s important that the Peoria Citizens Committee for Economic Opportunity (PCCEO) is continuing its food pantry, scheduled to open Sept. 3 at the 711 McBean Street complex, despite losing about $3 million in grants from the State of Illinois.

Its Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) also will continue, although it will be administered on an emergency basis for one year by the Tazwood CAA, an action agency operating as Tazwood Community Services, with offices in Pekin and Bloomington.

On Aug. 8, PCCEO received communication from David Wortman, Deputy Director of Community Assistance with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) indicating DCEO's termination of PCCEO's grants for LIHEAP ($2.27 million) and Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) ($679k).

Wortman said PCCEO hadn’t met the deadline for its 2023 audit, due Sept. 30, 2024, and was in default status.

The state didn’t blame PCCEO’s current leadership, including CEO Denise Moore and CFO Kelly Stewart.

Instead, “DCEO's decision to terminate PCCEO's LIHEAP and CSBG grants is the result of several years of persistent organizational and fiscal instability, including high turnover among both senior leadership and Board members.”

Moore, a a former Peoria City Council member and founder and CEO of the Minority Business Development Center in Peoria, became CEO of PCCEO just months ago. Formed in 1966 to help low-income Peorians with food assistance, energy bills, child care and housing needs, PCCEO’s previous leaders included Mike Banks and McFarland Bragg (who left in 1992 and 2002, respectively).

Upon the notice from the states, Moore said she “called a meeting with PCCEO staff, informing them of DCEO's plans to wind down the agency's grant portfolio. Staff is taking this very hard and I'm hopeful the community will rally around these dedicated workers. They have done nothing wrong and have worked diligently to serve our community.”

A high-profile service, PCCEO’s food pantry “will move on to address food insecurity,” said program manager Wayne Cannon. “The need continues. We have relationships with area food banks and other organizations, like OSF. We provide emergency food boxes to people discharged from the hospital and needing help while they’re recovering.”

Overall,

* Tazwood is set to provide qualifying Peorians with Home Energy Assistance starting next month through August of 2025;

* Community Services Block Grants under PCCEO will continue to provide services until this Dec. 31;

* PCCEO’s buildings at McBean, Webster school, the Affordable Housing Programs and Head Start will continue (although Head Start could be pulled next year, Moore said); and

* the state’s DECO will fund PCCEO’s administration and “grant closeout” of LIHEAP and CSBG.

ICE active in downstate Illinois, and it could increase

Three weeks after the White House gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a goal of 3,000 detentions per day, masked agents without warrants made more than 1,000 arrests in the agency’s Chicago Area of Responsibility, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kansas, according to the independent Deportation Data Project.

Some arrests have occurred in Central Illinois, according to the Immigration Project, a Bloomington-based group providing legal services and support for immigrants.

“We have direct and indirect reports of immigration enforcement in some of our service areas. For example, in Champaign, we heard of an arrest of two people outside the Champaign courthouse and the arrest of factory workers on their way to work,” the advocacy group said in a prepared statement. “There have also been reports in Kankakee, Bloomington, [and] Springfield among others. Immigration enforcement is likely happening everywhere in the country. Some are more reported than others.”

Indeed, the government’s Online Detainee Locator System has few details, such as Emmanuel Marroquin-Jiminez being arrested outside the McLean County courthouse in June after appearing there on charges unrelated to his status.

The Community Word contacted two Peoria law firms who say they work on immigration issues, and one declined to comment and the other spoke on the condition no name be used because of concern about retaliation.

“I think there’s some bad and some good in the enforcement,” he said. “I really wish the agents would separate violent criminals from everyone else. Right now, they’re sweeping up everybody.”

Laurie Bergner, McLean County League of Women Voters Community Education director, said ICE agents now seem to be focusing on bigger population centers.

“I'm sure they concentrate on larger cities, which have more immigrants and would be easier to pick up and deport to meet their quota,” she said. “I would guess they will focus on farm workers and meat-packing plants, etc. in rural areas – anywhere they think they will find groups of immigrants.”

In its statement, the Immigration Project said no area is being spared.

“Immigration enforcement is currently happening even in small-sized cities, and considering the fact that the agency is going to receive more funding as stipulated under the One Big Beautiful Bill passed on July 4, for recruitment, expansion of detention spaces, etc., it is very likely that their current attention or more of it may be drawn to workers in these sectors or in mid-sized cities.”

A roundup of Trump distraction and distortion seems like fiction

As President Trump announced sending troops into Washington, D.C., to fight a nonexistent crime wave, he also took aim at Illinois’ bail reform, another action defying reality, commenting, “We’re going to end that in Chicago.”

Statistics show that crime in Washington is at a 30-year low, and data from Real-Time Crime Index shows that after Illinois’ system changed in 2021 Chicago has had a historic drop in violent crime.

Trump’s chaotic orders go so far beyond sending soldiers to Washington and Los Angeles, forcing his own honorees on the Kennedy Center and flailing in chummy inanities with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. It’s all a modern version of “The Wizard of Oz” in which we hope for someone to say, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” despite all the flying monkeys and palace-guard billionaires marching alongside a spineless Congress murmuring the 21^st equivalent of “O-Ee-Yah! Ee-OH-Ah!"

In the wake of this Trump Tsunami are masked thugs seizing people for detention and possible deportation, cowering law firms and universities, judges and prosecutors, government agencies and private companies – plus institutions that try to resist authoritarian waves, such as scientists, inspectors general, political opponents, and organized labor (Trump eliminated union contracts at the EPA, FEMA, Veteran Affairs and even the USDA’s Food Inspection Service).

Of course, there are other literary lessons about rulers manipulating society to control everyday people. Maybe elected Republicans need to re-read Hans Christian Andersen’ short story “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Lewis Carroll’s “Alice through the Looking Glass” (in which Humpty Dimpty tells Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”), or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

An increasingly uneasy parallel to current events is George Orwell’s “1984,” a cautionary tale of “doublethink” such as the Ministry of Truth, which issues propaganda and falsifies history, and slogans “Ignorance is Strength” and “Freedom is Slavery” (which sounds like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Trump ally who said bondage was also a valuable learning experience).

Some conservative commentators actually objected when Trump fired Erika McEntarfer as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), accusing her of rigging economic data to hurt him, and hired E,J, Antoni from the Right-wing Heritage Foundation.

Stan Veuger of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said Antoni is “unfit.” Conservative Bill Kristol said the firing and replacement is “part of the broader pattern of the transformation of government information into pure propaganda.” Ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, explained when Trump “gets news he doesn’t like, he needs someone to blame because we won’t take the responsibility himself.” And Philip Klein of the conservative National Review said Trump’s replacing Erika McEntarfer “will help undermine public confidence in yet another American institution.”

Speaking of which, the Smithsonian is under fire to ensure its exhibits “fit Trump’s historical vision,” as the Wall Street Journal reported, and the State Department’s decades-old annual report on international human rights was dramatically cut AND gave a pass to notorious violators such as Hungary, El Salvador, and even China.

Predictably, a President who’s never felt obligated to be factual, whether about history or weather, has attacked universities and media, moving from name-calling and lawsuits to pressuring them to conform or risk losing research funding – and facing his wrath.

Universities that have settled with Trump include Brown, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, with Cornell and Illinois’ Northwestern reportedly close to caving.

The press has seen some surrender and others resist. Jeff Bezos purged the Washington Post opinion pages of voices critical of Trump; CNN forced out independent-minded newsman Jim Acosta, and CBS cancelled “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.

CBS seems to have been a collaborator with its owner, Paramount, which wanted the FCC’s approval to merge with Skydance. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr – who as one of the FCC’s commissioners during the Biden administration scolded an effort to pressure cable and streaming companies to drop Fox, NewsNation and One America News for airing misinformation on First Amendment grounds – now backs Skydance is its effort to “root out bias that has undermined trust in the national news media.”\Current FCC member Anna Gomez opposed the merger and said, “We can’t have the government interfering in the free press. I am alarmed by this administration’s campaign of censorship and control. Paramount’s payout and the approval of their transaction would only embolden those who believe the government can and should abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions.”

only embolden.” And former CBS News anchor Connie Chung said, “Honest, unbiased, fact-based journalism is being tainted. I fear the end of CBS as I knew it. It all smells.”

Meanwhile, Trump acolyte Kari Lake, now senior adviser at the Agency for Global Media, is leading the attempt to silence its Voice of America service.

Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian newspaper said, “We’re at a moment of emergency and media crisis.”

Something conservative columnist David Brooks wrote in April echoes even louder now. He wrote, “What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to – Democrat, independent or Republican.

However, if Congress or the courts can’t or won’t rein in the runaway jackass, it’s up to all of us.

“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising,” Brooks said. “It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.”

We must endeavor to resist – and to hope when cowardly institutions in media, on campus, or in government monkey around with facts, it will enrage even flying monkeys and timid palace guards to rebel.