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Worker centers gaining momentum, U.S. Chamber of Commerce says

Worker Centers Remain a Labor Relations Trend to Watch, Per U.S. Chamber Report  

Per a report via POLITICO, worker centers remain a labor relations trend to keep an eye on going into 2018, even though it may look like OURwalmart and the Fight for $15 are not as active as they once were.

Worker centers have expanded their clout with workers, according to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Worker centers can attract constituencies that traditional unions cannot, or at least cannot with the same effectiveness,” said the report, released by the Chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative.

The report, looking at the years 2013-2016, detailed some $106 million in direct and indirect grants to worker centers. The growth of worker centers is due, in part, to a decline in unions’ appeal to immigrant workers.

But “worker centers continue, gradually, to resemble unions more and more,” the report said, and “some may already have evolved to the point where they would seem to qualify as labor organizations under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA).” Yet “once institutionalized,” the report said, worker centers “would almost inevitably lose their flexibility and, one suspects, even risk their appeal.”