SAG-AFTRA Podcast With AFL-CIO President Appears to be like To Future Of Labor Motion – Deadline

SAG-AFTRA is celebrating the upcoming Labor Day weekend with a podcast that includes Liz Shuler, president of the 12.5 million-member AFL-CIO, which represents 57 affiliated unions, together with SAG-AFTRA, and employees in each ZIP code within the nation.

Based on Shuler, the way forward for organized labor is shiny.

“We’re stronger collectively,” Shuler mentioned on the podcast. “By being an affiliate union of the AFL-CIO, it brings the complete breadth and scope and energy of 12.5 million working folks to one another’s fights. And SAG-AFTRA is on the entrance strains of a lot. Lots of people assume, ‘Oh, nicely, SAG-AFTRA, are they actually employees?’ Properly, after all, since you work in an trade like Hollywood, or you’re somebody in broadcast, you completely have the identical points that working folks in different professions have: security and well being issues, discrimination and harassment issues, and ensuring you’re being paid equitably to your work.

“So, what which means is we get to carry the voices and solidarity of extra folks collectively to assist one another in these fights. And I consider the work that you just (SAG-AFTRA) did in the course of the pandemic, for instance, being on the entrance strains of making security requirements that the remainder of us might study from. In order that’s only one small instance of what we do to assist one another. And it’s an awesome instance of how we present up for one another.”

You possibly can hear the podcast, co-hosted by SAG-AFTRA Nationwide Govt Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and SAG-AFTRA Govt Vice President Ben Whitehair, here.

“And I feel in each trade, the place there’s employees and administration,” Crabtree-Eire mentioned, “there’s all the time a have to steadiness out the ability of administration. And I don’t assume anybody’s ever discovered a greater or more practical manner to do this than by employees performing collectively. And our members are employees, for certain. Anybody who’s been to a movie or tv set, or a broadcast newsroom or to a recording studio, undoubtedly is aware of that.”

Stressing the interconnectedness of unionized employees, Shuler pointed to representatives of the labor motion becoming a member of the picket strains throughout SAG-AFTRA’s 10-month strike towards the Bartle Bogle Hegarty promoting company in 2018-2019, and to SAG-AFTRA members displaying up final yr to lend assist to putting ice cream cake employees in New Mexico who have been asking for a dollar-an-hour pay elevate. That, she mentioned, “is a superb instance of how we’re extra highly effective collectively.”

Reflecting on the historic beneficial properties labor unions have achieved for union and nonunion employees alike – such because the five-day workweek, paid holidays and youngster labor legal guidelines – Whitehair famous that the AFL-CIO and SAG-AFTRA are uniquely poised to handle the challenges that employees face sooner or later. A technique they try this, he famous, is thru their annual Labor Innovation & Know-how Summit, which is a joint partnership between SAG-AFTRA and the AFL-CIO, which he mentioned are “persevering with to look to the longer term.”

“I do know you’ve been fairly energetic inside SAG-AFTRA on these points,” Shuler mentioned. “And I do know you have got a committee inside your union that’s actually taking this on, ft first, as they are saying, and leaping in as a result of expertise has impacted your trade in all probability greater than any trade. If you concentrate on the evolution and the place we’re headed from right here, it has been an amazing alternative for we within the labor motion to accomplice with SAG-AFTRA on this Labor Innovation & Know-how Summit as a result of we will get entry to the very best pondering, the cutting-edge methods, on the right way to deal with expertise in order that it’s working for working folks. What are the guardrails we must be setting up in our contracts and to have the ability to share that with the remainder of the labor motion?

“In order that’s what that is about as a collaboration. It’s a partnership for constructing for the longer term as a result of we all know that extremely expert union employees are what our financial system wants as expertise is disrupting our workplaces and the bottom retains form of shifting beneath our ft. However we’ve been there earlier than. The labor motion has been consistently evolving and altering as expertise has modified during the last 100 years, frankly. And so, the trick right here is that as new jobs emerge, we need to be sure the labor motion is the middle of gravity for serving to employees navigate that change, to assist them upskill and discover that pipeline to the subsequent alternative and ensure that these jobs which are rising are good paying union jobs. So, we’ll look ahead to working with you on the subsequent Summit. And I do know we additionally accomplice across the Shopper Electronics Present, which provides us a window into what the subsequent improvements are going to be and the way we will make them work for working folks.”

“It’s been so enjoyable to do this with the AFL-CIO,” Crabtree-Eire mentioned. “And talking for SAG-AFTRA, we actually have discovered quite a bit and seen issues coming down the street by advantage of that kind of funding in seeking to the longer term. And so, it’s been a extremely super partnership, and I’ve noticed a few of the different unions who’ve been current after we’ve executed these applications have actually taken quite a bit away from that have as nicely.”

Shuler additionally famous that the AFL-CIO has a Know-how Institute to develop experience on the way forward for work and the way finest to carry the labor motion collectively in coping with rising applied sciences. “So, we’re attempting to leverage the ability of labor to actually form expertise and innovation for working folks,” she informed the SAG-AFTRA leaders. “I don’t have to let you know how the pandemic really has accelerated the usage of applied sciences at work. And we’re seeing all types of reviews on how employees are being surveilled. And I even discovered about this new expertise referred to as a ‘mouse jiggler,’ which for people who find themselves working at residence and are being monitored each 10 minutes by their employers primarily based on their keystrokes and the way they use their computer systems.

“And so, we must be main the cost on the right way to have a voice on the desk; the right way to embrace a employee perspective after we’re constructing out these new regimes of how we’re gonna be working in new and alternative ways. And so we expect that organized labor must be on the middle of those transformations to ensure that we’ve a job in shaping that future, as a result of we actually are the one pressure within the nation, if you concentrate on it, that has sufficient energy to ensure that working folks can form that future and form it collectively for our union members, but additionally for the remainder of working America.”

Pointing to a brand new Gallup ballot that discovered that 71% of the American public assist unions, Shuler famous that that determine is the best since 1965, and up from 68% final yr. “So, the development goes nowhere however up as a result of employees are waking as much as their energy,” she mentioned. “And so they’re saying, ‘We’ve labored by means of this pandemic. We obtained our nation by means of it. We regularly have been on the entrance strains as important employees. We have been referred to as important in the future and handled as expendable the subsequent. Corporations are actually making billions of {dollars} popping out of this pandemic. It may be higher. Like we have to cease and intestine verify ourselves. Like we’re not gonna simply sit again and take it anymore. We now have the ability to stand up and demand higher.’

“And in order that’s the place all this organizing is coming in that we’re seeing all throughout the nation. Employees are discovering their voice. They’re standing up. They’re taking dangers. They’re occurring strike. They’re main walkouts and picket strains. And you understand, additionally ‘quiet quitting,’ as we’ve learn within the newspapers. So, I feel it’s a second in time. It’s an inflection level for the labor motion. How can we harness the power and the momentum, and all of those constructive emotions folks have about unions into precise union progress?”

“The celebrities seem like aligned,” she mentioned. “And if we don’t make the most of this second, then I don’t know after we will. We now have a pro-union administration within the White Home, probably the most pro-union president in our lifetimes. We now have the general public with us – 71% approve of unions. And we’ve working people who find themselves rising up and able to take dangers.

“And in order that’s what offers me nice hope, nice pleasure, to be main on this second and being there with you alongside you and your members to point out that the labor motion is extra related and vibrant and daring and fashionable and inclusive as ever. And our doorways are open large. We’re actually the one establishment left that may carry folks collectively to make the change that employees want on this financial system. As a result of as you understand, it’s not working for all working folks. If we’re gonna shut that inequality hole, if we’re gonna battle for equal pay for ladies, and battle towards discrimination and harassment, and for civil and human rights, then we’ve to do it with a sturdy, highly effective motion of working folks.

“And that’s what we expect the AFL-CIO and our unions will likely be for the longer term and the subsequent era, and as the way forward for work evolves. So, it is a very thrilling time to be within the labor motion.”