Labor Relations Issues Enter 2016 Political Race

Labor Relations Summits Everywhere in October

As the 2016 political races heat up, it seems increasingly inevitable that domestic employment and labor policy will be an on-going concern of candidates at all levels.  Some of the action kicks off in October with three different conferences or “Summits” being convened by a wide variety of groups as a way to lay out their issues and discusses ideas on moving a specific agenda forward.

Today, the White House and the Department of Labor will be hosting  a so-called “Summit on Worker Voice“, bring a slate of guest invitees from labor, business and other organizations together to discuss ways to ensure that middle class Americans are sharing in the benefits of the broad-based economic growth that they are helping to create.  It would be worth your time to check out the link we’ve posted to review the social media messaging and the YouTube video that was posted by the Department of Labor to promote the event.  There is also a live stream if you want to listen to the event today.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Heritage Foundation held it’s own “Summit on Worker’s Empowerment”  on October 6th. This event featured workers discussing problems they have had with organized labor. In addition, American Rising Squared (AR2), a nonprofit public policy organization, has produced a video as a counter-point to the Administration’s promotional materials for the White House Summit.

Finally, a group of digital media workers who have been very actively organizing throughout the ranks of new media will meet in Louisville Kentucky from October 8th – 11th to work on developing a Nationwide Center for Media Workers.  According to the their website, the group will create a non-traditional labor committee, and seek to develop their own industry-wide campaigns to promote the right to self-determination and advocate for greater workplace democracy covering 12 key areas of media workers’ rights.

CUE members will be gathering next week in Denver at our own fall conference “Reaching the Summit of Positive Employee Relations“, where CUE members can hear more about these events and all the latest developments in labor and employee relations.