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A note from EPI’s Kirstyn Flood: With the launch of EPI’s Unequal Power project and our viral tweet on the productivity-pay gap, we’re shining a bright light on the issues of weakened worker power and weak growth in worker pay over the last few decades. The failing economy has illuminated the importance of unions and labor protections, as millions of workers have had to carry out their duties under the threat of the coronavirus.
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EPI’s Unequal Power project identifies why we need to operate within a framework that recognizes the inherent power inequality in the workplace. The project launched with a key paper that traces the story of the seeming rejection—but actual resiliency—of the 1905 Supreme Court case Lochner v. New York, which established the premise that employers and workers have equal power in the workplace and in the bargaining process. The paper provides examples of labor doctrines to which this premise has been applied—to workers’ harm—including employment at will, forced arbitration, right-to-work laws, and a worker’s status as an “employee.” Read the Lochner report »
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Unequal Power: How the assumption of equal bargaining power in the workplace undermines freedom, fairness, and democracy
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The telecommunications workforce is under enormous pressure. Despite four decades of rising skills, the large majority of the workforce has suffered slow wage growth, consistently lagging well behind average productivity growth in the economy as a whole. Today, roughly 45% of telecommunications workers have a four-year college degree or more education, up from 8.3% in the 1970s. Yet a low-wage (10th-percentile) telecommunications worker has seen wages fall 0.3% annually since the 1970s, while the median telecommunications worker wage increased just 0.4% annually, compared with 1.8% annual productivity growth in that period. The downward pressure on wages stems from a variety of sources, but two are central: fissuring and the long-term decline in unionization in the telecom sector. Read the report »
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This blog post offers a first-person account of what teaching looks like during a pandemic, from the perspective of Ivey Welshans, a Philadelphia teacher who spoke at a recent EPI webinar. The views of teachers—which often go unheard in policy, research, and the media—should, in the present crisis, be deemed more valuable than ever: Teachers are the closest witnesses of the challenges the pandemic has brought for their students, for themselves, and for their jobs; their expertise and judgement are critically important to solving these challenges as the pandemic continues and in its aftermath. Read the blog post »
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Public school teachers earn about 20% less in weekly wages than nonteacher college graduates, according to a recent EPI report. Although teachers on average enjoy better benefits packages than similar workers, the authors find that benefits mitigate only part of the pay penalty. EPI President Thea Lee will moderate a discussion today at 4 p.m., featuring National Education Association President Becky Pringle; the report’s authors, Lawrence Mishel and Sylvia Allegretto; and Shawna Mott-Wright, teacher and president of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association. The speakers will share findings from the report, delve into the history of teacher pay, and assess the impact of the persistent pay inequity. Register for the event »
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The equal power assumption is false, but pervasive, in employment law, philosophy, political science, and economics, and it greatly disadvantages the vast majority of working people. The Economic Policy Institute’s Unequal Power initiative is a three-year, interdisciplinary initiative that challenges the equal power assumption and identifies why we need to operate within a framework that centers unequal workplace power. EPI hosted the launch of Unequal Power, featuring presentations and a discussion by leading thinkers, a brief overview of the project, and a dedication of the initiative to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose dissent in Epic Systems inspired the project. Watch the video »
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Fighting unequal power by strengthening worker power
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