“Among workers - and particularly low wage workers - there’s been a reigniting of the understanding that employers are seeing record profits while wages haven’t kept up,” Shierholz said. and Boulder, Colo., have also filed for union elections, with the Minneapolis location slated to hold its vote next week.

Trader Joe’s workers in Minneapolis, Minn. “And we had tried to voice concerns in the past, through surveys and other channels. “We were well aware our wages have not kept up with inflation,” she said. Maeg Yosef, 41, who has worked as a crew member at Trader Joe’s in Hadley, Mass., for 18 years, said that working through the pandemic led to her and her coworkers discussing workplace safety and other conditions more often, including pay and benefits, which led to a successful union drive this month.ĭays before that vote, the company announced raises for certain brackets of workers, an increase Yosef attributes to the pressure of the campaign. High-profile campaigns at Amazon and more than 200 Starbucks locations have made headlines. Union drives are up 58% over the same period last year, according to the National Labor Relations Board, and workers filed nearly 2,000 petitions for representation in the first three quarters of the 2022 fiscal year. “We’re not where we were six to 12 months ago - but the labor market remains strong.” But for the moment, “The momentum is still with the worker,” said Hershbein. That could change if hiring slows and the U.S.

“When there’s a huge number of job openings at one time, that implicit threat is real.” “One major source of worker power is the implicit threat that you’ll quit your job and take another,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. employers added more than half a million jobs in July, according to the monthly jobs report released Friday - and unemployment remains near a 50-year low, meaning job-switching will likely remain an option at least for the near future. And sometimes switching jobs may mean earning more while giving up benefits like health insurance or schedule consistency. In July, hourly earnings rose 0.5%, an increase of 5.2% over the past year - still not enough to keep up with inflation. workers say they are very or somewhat likely to look for a new job in the next six months.įor many workers on the low end of the pay scale, though, inflation has already eaten into or erased any real wage gains, said Brad Hershbein, senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. A Pew Research survey found that about one in five U.S. More than 4 million Americans have quit their jobs every month since June 2021, a level never seen before last year. “Even my Taco Bell manager said, ’If they’re gonna offer you $20 an hour - take it,’” Church said.Īs inflation skyrockets, hourly workers like Church have been seeking different positions with better pay. Her attempts to negotiate a raise were unsuccessful, so she kept hunting for another job, eventually finding one at Laredo’s Tacos, a chain connected to 7-Eleven. New York (AP) - Chelsie Church was working as a manager at a Colorado Taco Bell when she found out workers at a nearby Pizza Hut were earning more than $1 an hour more than she was.

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