New US Treasury report confirms efficacy of unions. Submit your unreported documents NOW!

On a recent browse of one of my favorite blogs, BoingBoing.net (daily reading along with Kottke!) there was a post about “New US Treasury report confirms that unions are good for everybody”. Of course I submitted an “unreported document” to GPO right away so this new report should show up in FDLP library catalogs across the country in no time flat!

Once again, I’d like to encourage my depository library colleagues to hunt down and report these documents to GPO when you find them. Ben Amata at Sacramento State University does an amazing job at this and frequently posts his golden finds on the GOVDOC-L listserv for others’ benefit. There are other master unreported documents hunters out there too. But there aren’t enough of us and SO MANY publications especially from the executive branch go UN-reported, UN-cataloged, and UN-preserved.

So I implore all govinfo librarians to make this a part of your work week: track on your favorite executive agency, comb through your favorite newspaper/news site for mentions etc. Whatever your regular process or workflow is, add this small side step of reporting these documents to GPO. If all 1100+ depository librarians submitted a couple of reports a week, we’d be so much closer to actually having a “National Collection” of curated, born-digital publications from all across our federal government.

The empirical research on unions suggests that middle-class workers reap substantial benefits from unionization. Unions raise the wages of their members by 10 to 15 percent. Unions also improve fringe benefits and workplace procedures such as retirement plans, workplace grievance policies, and predictable scheduling. These workplace improvements contribute substantially to middle-class financial stability and worker well-being. For example, one study has estimated that the average worker values their ability to avoid short-notice schedule changes at up to 20 percent of their wages.

Importantly, the positive effects of unions are not only experienced by workers at unionized establishments. Other workers see increases in wages and improved work practices as their nonunionized workplaces compete with unionized ones for labor. In turn, the higher pay and job security of both unionized and nonunionized middle-class workers can further spill over to their families and communities through more stable housing, more investment in education, and other channels.

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