With labor activity making headlines across the U.S. and wealth inequality at all-time highs, new polling finds overwhelming support among the public for a slate of pro-worker bills advanced by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee last month.
According to polling by Data for Progress released Tuesday, all three bills passed by the committee last month enjoy at least over 70 percent support from the public, demonstrating the public’s interest in advancing workers’ rights despite conservative lawmakers’ refusal to do so.
One such bill is the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a landmark pro-union bill that’s been championed by labor advocates as a necessary step toward reversing decades of the suppression of workers’ rights by corporate leaders and lawmakers.
The poll finds strong support for the PRO Act, with 70 percent of voters in favor and majorities of voters across the political spectrum approving of the bill.
The poll also found that 77 percent of voters support Sanders’s and Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s (D-Connecticut) Health Families Act, a bill that would require employers with over 15 employees to provide seven days of paid sick leave to workers.
This proposal — which has become a key demand from labor advocates amid recent legislative and labor disputes — has support across the political spectrum, Data for Progress found, with 86 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents and 67 percent of Republicans in support.
The Paycheck Fairness Act similarly enjoys high support, with 77 percent in favor and similarly high bipartisan support, the poll found. The bill seeks to eliminate loopholes that allow women to be paid less than men in similar roles in the workplace, requiring employers to prove that any pay gaps between men and women are due to factors other than gender.
The polling comes as support for unions has hit a high. Last year, Gallup found that 71 percent of Americans approve of unions — the highest approval rating in 57 years. The labor movement, meanwhile, is making big strides; watershed union campaigns from workers at companies like Starbucks and Amazon have breathed new life into union efforts, while strike activity has been on the rise in recent years.
Just in recent months, union workers across sectors like media and health care have waged historic strikes, while 340,000 UPS workers are preparing to walk off the job over paltry offers for their newest labor contract.
At the same time, these workers are fighting an uphill battle. U.S. labor laws are severely skewed to favor employers, both in terms of benefits guaranteed to workers and rights granted to workers seeking to organize and fight back. The bills passed by the HELP Committee, particularly the PRO Act, would help alleviate some of these pressures and tip the scales, but they have little to no chance of passing with a Republican-controlled House and the Senate filibuster in the way of progress.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.