May 21, 2013
“It probably did save my life.”
Jeremy, a member of the Writers Guild, is a cancer survivor, and he gives credit to his union for negotiating his health care plan in a new video by the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
His is just one of the moving stories told in three short videos released today. These profiles show how unions have helped workers in very different occupations — child care, freelance writing and taxi driving — gain and maintain wages and benefits that are key to a middle-class standard of living.
On the flip side, La Tonya describes the hardship she’s faced since public sector workers lost their right to collectively bargain in Wisconsin.
These videos bring to life a huge body of research that finds that unions provide invaluable benefits for workers. CEPR regularly focuses on this topic and has many reports about how union membership increases workers’ chances of having health insurance and a retirement plan. Some reports focus on specific groups of workers — African American, Latino, women, young, low Wage, service sector, and immigrant — and find the same positive effects across the board.
