NEWS: HELP Committee to Hold Hearing with Union Leaders on Labor Movement Resurgence and the Fight Against Corporate Greed

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), on Wednesday announced the committee will hold a hearing next week entitled, “Standing Up Against Corporate Greed: How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families.” Union leaders representing working people who are standing up across the country will join the hearing to offer testimony, including United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, and Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America (AFA-CWA) International President Sara Nelson.

“The fight that the trade union movement is waging against corporate greed has everything to do with rebuilding a struggling middle class that was once the envy of the world,” said Chairman Sanders. “Historic union victories won by the UAW, Teamsters, and many others are not only improving the lives of union workers, they are beginning to improve the lives of working families all over America. What the trade union movement is demonstrating is that when workers stand together and exercise their constitutional right to form a union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions they can achieve what was once thought impossible.”

From autoworkers, nurses, miners, teachers, and rail workers, to workers at UPS, Amazon, Starbucks, McDonalds, Kaiser Permanente, Kellogg, Frito-Lay, John Deere, hotels, airlines, and more, workers have been going out on strike in record numbers and securing historic collective bargaining agreements – all in the face of unprecedented corporate greed and unlawful union-busting tactics. In September of 2023 alone, there were 69 strikes involving 214,300 workers, according to the Cornell University Labor Action Tracker. In the first half of 2023, over 58,000 workers were organized by unions, near record levels for this century.

This hearing will focus on the role of unions in fighting back against corporate greed, particularly through recent historic collective bargaining agreements, and discuss the challenges workers continue to face in exercising their right to form and join unions and bargain for fair contracts.

Details
What: HELP Committee hearing on “Standing Up Against Corporate Greed: How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families”
When: 10:00 a.m. ET, Tuesday, November 14
Where: Room 430, Dirksen Senate Office Building. The hearing will also be livestreamed on the HELP Committee’s website.
Who:

• HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders and Committee Members
• Shawn Fain, International President, UAW, Detroit, MI
• Sean M. O’Brien, General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Washington, D.C.
• Sara Nelson, International President, Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America, Washington, D.C.