Joining with your coworkers to form a union is the most effective way to improve your wages, benefits and working conditions. It is also the best way to make sure that you and your coworkers are included in the decisions that your employer makes during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. More than six million union professionals in a wide variety of industries and occupations have already secured the protections of a union contract, including teachers, engineers, programmers, journalists, nonprofit staff, lawyers, nurses, and doctors. If you are interested in organizing a union at your workplace, send an email to info@dpeaflcio.org and we will help you find a union that is right for you and your colleagues.
Protecting Health and Safety:
As states start to lift stay-at-home orders, employers are taking vastly different approaches to reopening their offices, with some companies reducing remote work opportunities and forcing employees to start commuting again, regardless of the real risk still posed by COVID-19. But with a unified voice, professionals in unions have the ability to compel employers to negotiate with them and ensure that health and safety are the top priority in decisions about when and how to reopen offices.
Flexible Work From Home Policies:
Professionals who join together in unions are able to negotiate with their managers for sensible, telework policies that are respectful of employee needs. This often includes set work hours and “the right to disconnect” from work emails, slack, and other platforms to maintain work-life balance during extended periods of remote work.
A Voice in the Future Direction of the Workplace:
With the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic, many professionals are rightfully concerned about their workplace’s future. Professionals in unions have a legal right to bargain over changes to their hours, pay and working conditions, and in many workplaces, union members are able to work collaboratively with management in order to find creative solutions to avoid layoffs.
Given the opportunity, a majority of professionals would support a proposal to have a union in their current workplace. If you are interested in joining a union, most of your colleagues probably are too. Read more about the benefits of union membership for professionals or contact us to connect with a union that will work with you through the process of forming a union.