Urging solidarity with working people fighting for adequate pay, quality retirement benefits, and safe working conditions.

Whereas average CEO pay in the United States has increased by 18.9 percent over the course of the pandemic, nearly five times as fast as the average worker who remained employed; Whereas the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio increased from 21–to–1 in 1965 to 351–to–1 in 2020, and income inequality continues to rise; Whereas strikes are used as a last resort for workers who have exhausted all other options to achieve safe working conditions, quality benefits, and family-sustaining pay; Whereas, as a result of inadequate compensation, benefits, and workplace safety measures, workers have engaged in unprecedented labor activity, culminating in over 100,000 workers in October 2021 engaging in actions such as walkouts, strikes, mobilization efforts, and union drives; Whereas 60,000 members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees across the country recently reached a landmark tentative deal after voting to authorize a strike if their demands had not been met; Whereas tens of thousands of members of National Nurses United recently won significant wage and benefit increases and health and safety protections, including at some hospitals where more than 4,000 nurses went on strike; Whereas 10,000 members of the United Auto Workers in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, and Georgia went on strike; Whereas 2,000 members of the Communications Workers of America in New York recently went on strike; Whereas 1,400 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee recently went on strike; Whereas 1,000 members of the United Mine Workers in Alabama went on strike; Whereas hundreds of members of the United Steelworkers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in West Virginia recently went on strike; Whereas dozens of AFSCME members providing behavioral health services in New Jersey recently went on strike; Whereas dozens of members of the Ironworkers in Pennsylvania recently went on strike; Whereas thousands of United Steelworkers members across the country recently voted to authorize a strike, 5,000 members are on strike, and hundreds are locked out of their job site as they demand better wages and benefits; Whereas workers for major corporations are organizing union drives at their stores and warehouses; Whereas workers for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Virginia are working to secure a new contract but have been locked out of their job site; Whereas workers in California are organizing to unionize with the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers to improve well-documented health and safety issues at their workplace; Whereas cultural workers in museums and libraries in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Minnesota, and other States across the country are organizing with AFSCME; Whereas 10,000 members of UNITE HERE across the country are engaging in marches, strikes, pickets, rallies, a unionization vote, and a strike authorization vote; Whereas numerous members of other labor unions and organizations across the country are engaging in walkouts, strikes, mobilization efforts, and union drives; Whereas the surge in strike activity is supported by 74 percent of Americans; Whereas union workers earn wages that are 11.2 percent higher than non-union workers on average and are more likely to have access to paid sick leave and health benefits than nonunionized workers; Whereas women union members generally earn more than their non-union peers; Whereas more than 60 million American workers—over half of the entire non-unionized workforce in the United States—would vote to join a union if they could; and Whereas 68 percent of Americans support labor unions, a 56-year high: Now, therefore, be it That the United States House of Representatives stands with the brave workers who have collectively raised their voices on the job to demand to be valued with adequate pay, quality retirement benefits, and safe working conditions and will intend to support their efforts by passing pro-worker legislation.

Summary: This resolution expresses support for workers engaging in collective action with respect to wages, retirement benefits, and safe working conditions.