Obama touts worker protections in Hub visit
Cites state’s leadership on minimum wage, leave time
In Boston for a Labor Day breakfast, President Barak Obama vowed to take the gains the Massachusetts labor movement has made to the national level.
At a breakfast sponsored by the Greater Boston Labor Council, the president announced he has signed an executive order requiring companies that contract with the federal government to provide seven days a year of paid sick leave for employees.
“That’s not a new story here in Massachusetts,” Obama told the labor activists and politicians gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel Monday. “You all have always been ahead of the curve.”
Labor activists march on Winter Street in an action of solidarity with non-union service employees.
Obama’s speech came as political leaders celebrated gains made over the past year, including an increased minimum wage of $10 an hour and a new bill of rights for domestic workers. As Mayor Martin Walsh pointed out, the gains made by the labor movement in Massachusetts stand in stark contrast to strong anti-union rhetoric among Republican presidential candidates, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who called teachers unions “the single most destructive force in education.”
Obama, who has taken more strident stands on race and social justice issues as he has entered his last two years in office, affirmed his support for organized labor.
“If I were looking for a good job that lets me build some security for my family, I’d join a union,” he said.
Obama pointed out that his administration has extended overtime protection to workers earning up to $50,000 a year, up from the $23,000 cut-off set in 1972, and passed executive orders outlawing the practice of firing employees for disclosing their rate of pay and authorizing the Department of Labor to collect data on what federal contractors pay employees so that they can better spot gender-based pay disparities.
Additionally, Obama said he will push to expand to all U.S. workers the paid family leave his administration extended to employees of federal contractors.
“I’m asking Congress to find a way to make paid family leave and medical leave a reality,” he said.
Political pressures
President Barack Obama announced an executive order extending earned sick time benefits to employees of contractors doing business with the federal government.
The president’s push for labor did not go completely unchallenged at the breakfast. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren twice mentioned the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal the Obama administration is pushing that she said would facilitate international trade for corporations and harm the economic prospects of local workers.
“The economic survival of families in Lawrence and Fall River and Boston hangs on the balance of an international trade deal,” Warren said.
The labor breakfast came between two demonstrations. As labor activists entered the Park Plaza Hotel, members of Boston Carmen’s Union 589 demonstrated outside against the administration of Gov. Charlie Baker, which is moving forward with plans to privatize some MBTA services. Following the breakfast, members of SEIU Local 32BJ led a march to show solidarity with workers in non-union sectors: employees of contractors at Logan Airport and fast food workers.
“The president is here today and it’s an honor,” said 32BJ Vice President Roxana Rivera. “But we know there’s a lot of work to be done. There are people with families working full time and living in poverty.”
New challenges
Locally and nationally, SEIU is at the forefront of union organizing, bringing in new members as overall union membership has been on the decline.
“Ten years ago, we had 12,000 members,” said SEIU 1199 Vice President Tyrek Lee. “We have 50,000 now in Massachusetts.”
The gains at 1199 and other SEIU locals comes as organizers are bringing new sectors of the service industry into the fold. SEIU Local 509 has organized adjunct professors as part of its Fight for $15 campaign to raise wages in key industries to $15 an hour. The unions also have been negotiating pay raises for non-union members and supporting the bill of rights for domestic workers — a break from past organizing tactics.
“You see the labor movement growing in non-traditional ways,” Lee said. “It’s part of a new movement for social justice.”
Rivera said the growing awareness of the inequality between the wealthy and the middle class has given SEIU and other unions fighting for service workers political cover to push for and win worker protections.
“I think that folks are seeing the reality that the gap between the richest people and everyone else is widening,” she said. “People understand that we need to fix this.”
The earned sick time, minimum wage increase and growing Fight for $15 campaigns in Massachusetts are part of what Rivera sees as a new phase in labor activism.
“We’ve created a new movement,” she said. “I think the time is ripe for some big changes.”
