Labor News

LA educators today are standing together with the community to fight for smaller class sizes, more counselors and librarians, fair wages and a quality education for every student in LAUSD. Striking is always a last resort and it takes extraordinary courage to risk everything to do what’s right.

That’s exactly what more than 30,000 United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) educators are doing today. In the largest California strike in years, these educators are taking a stand for their students, parents, the community and the entire labor movement.

The U.S. economy gained 312,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate rose to 3.9%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This report shows an increase in unemployed workers and while wage gains are stronger, they are not consistent with a tight labor market. This ongoing financial and economic volatility means that the Federal Reserve needs to hold off on more rate increases.

It’s bad enough when members of the public cross a strike picket line. It’s worse when union members do, and worse still when those union members are millionaire athletes who are looked up to by children as role models. But that’s what happened at the Boston Ritz-Carlton Hotel when 1,500 union maids and bellhops walked off the job for better wages and benefits — part of a wave of strikes by UNITE HERE members at Marriott hotels in seven cities.

Imagine working side-by-side with others who have all the benefits of being an employee of a company including paid sick days, a minimum wage, workers’ comp, unemployment insurance and more. Now imagine you are doing similar work without any of those protections because your boss decided to call you an “independent contractor” instead of an employee simply because he wants to cut corners on costs.

It’s called misclassification, and it’s a growing and devastating problem for workers, businesses that do the right thing and our economy as a whole.