盖洛普民调：71%美国人支持工会，成员创16年新高

This Labor Day weekend support for labor unions is way up. 71% of Americans approve of labor unions according to a new Gallup poll out this week. That includes 52% of Republicans. And nearly half of Americans, 47%, want them to have more power than they do right now. We talked to Liz Shuler. She's the president of the AFL CIO, which represents about 16,000,000 workers in sectors including education, health care, government, transportation, entertainment, construction, manufacturing, and sports.

Take a listen. The union membership is at a sixteen year high. There were 500,000 more union members just last year. So the numbers are trending slightly up, but labor law is still broken. It makes it nearly impossible to join a union because employers try to prevent it from happening and break the law. But workers are organizing. You know, you think about all of these growing sectors of the economy, a lot of precarity in work, the fact that people aren't keeping up with inflation, their paychecks aren't stretching as far as they used to.

More people wanna join unions than ever before. So they're organizing despite the laws that are preventing, you know, from us from, being protected the way we should be. So I think that the future looks bright because especially as AI and technology start to impact jobs, we're seeing it already. People need more power. They need a voice, and they see unions as the way to do that. It's the politics of it are interesting to me.

For years, labor unions were more associated with the Democratic party. They still are, but president Trump has certainly upended that. How do you interpret the the political situation, and how is that impacting unions? Yeah. We tend to focus on issues. We are gonna support candidates and elected officials that support us that are fighting for working people. So whether you're Democrat or Republican and independent, if you are focused on economic issues, kitchen table, if you are voting to, you know, raise the minimum wage or provide tax policy that benefits workers, we're gonna support you.

So it just so happens that Democrats largely, vote to protect working families. But we actually, on balance, you know, we'll support any candidate that supports us. So that's what we're gonna be fighting for in this election. We have, targeted races all across this country where we're educating and mobilizing working people to say who is voting on what issue, why, and who's responsible, and connect that to, turning out votes at the polls.

You talk a lot about CEO pay versus worker pay. We have a lot of CEOs who listen to our programs here at Bloomberg. Why do you think this is such a big issue with your members, and what would your advice be to CEOs who may see unions as an obstacle to growing their business? Yeah. We do a report each year, our pay watch report, and it does track the ratio of CEO pay to the average worker, and it's been growing. It's no secret that since unions have been in decline since the seventies, just starting to come back, but that has made that inequality gap even wider.

So the pay ratio has increased. It's now up to 312 times to one, the average worker. In the seventies, it was in the twenties to one. So, that is what I think workers are so frustrated about. They're they're angry because they're seeing more and more of the wealth concentrated with a smaller group of people. And so, really, unions bring those voices to the table, and it often is in partnership with their employers because we want our employers to succeed.

We just wanna make sure that the working people who make those companies successful are being paid a living wage, can make, you know, put a roof over their head and make sure that the the gas prices and the grocery prices aren't bankrupting them. So I would say to companies, you know, don't see unions as an adversary. See us as a way to, bring good solutions to the table because we are on the front lines. And, also, you know, in thinking about ways to partner on workforce training and workforce development as you're trying to shore up your talent pipeline, unions provide that pathway.

A question that takes us back to Washington. Republicans in the House of Representatives are investigating several unions alleging that dues are being used for illegal political funding. Many of these groups fall under the AFL CIO. Are dues being misused? And what is your reaction to this probe? I think that is a typical tactic when you have, hostile people in government who wanna see what they're perceiving their political enemies, you know, to try to take them, down a notch.

And, we've seen this before throughout time. A lot of politicians think unions are, you know, a political entity when in fact all we are is voices that represent working people. We are a way to consolidate, you know, workers' perspectives and a voice to try to get our fair share of the wealth that we create in this economy. And so I think that these investigations often are a fool's errand, and it's just a way to distract and divide instead of, you know, allowing working people to bring their perspective into the halls of congress and, you know, regulate, and and enforce safety laws and make sure that we're putting guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence so that it's not destroying jobs and and making sure that working people have a prosperous future.

Can you say definitively, though? Sorry, Christina. Definitively, though, that dues are not being misused? Correct. No. I think those are old stereotypes from the past. We have very rigorous requirements with the federal government. All of our expenditures are transparent. They're online. Anyone can look at them, but we spend our money representing working people. I do wanna ask you about, a lot of those working people who, interestingly, a lot of blue collar workers are in favor of data centers because it means jobs.

It's construction jobs. It's things being built. But I know you have raised some concerns about AI, how it's being used, regulations. You're actually on Time one hundred's AI list, which I didn't know was a thing, but I now do. How did you get yourself there, and and what do you see as your role in this conversation? Well, the conversation around AI is completely devoid of worker perspective. I think mostly the focus is on the big tech CEOs and how fast we're, moving forward and implementing, you know, reckless, policies that are actually starting to destroy jobs.

We're seeing it now particularly in some of the back office roles, payroll, accounting, admin support, and we are about to hit a crisis point. And we have no plan as a nation. So we are saying as working people, we need to put the guardrails in place to make sure AI is used responsibly, that it's not used to dehumanize us, but instead to augment and enhance our jobs. But without regulation and without a policy approach that puts workers first, it's going to be a race to the bottom, and it's gonna enhance the wealth of a small group of tech billionaires that are gonna be, you know, running this country before we know it and isolating the rest of us.

So that's why I'm so passionate about making sure that working people are in those rooms that are in the development processes, in the labs before AI and and advanced technology is introduced in the workplace. Looking ahead briefly to the midterm elections, does labor want to see a change in the balance of power in congress? We are fighting for the candidates who are gonna support workers and fight for us. And so, we are in all of the close congressional races all across the country educating and mobilizing people.

The endorsement process happens locally. So we endorse Democrats. Yes. All kinds of Democrats, but we also endorse Republicans, independents, whoever is gonna fight for us. But the other thing we're doing is training 50,000 election protectors to make sure that our vote is protected. And we will have folks at polling plac