Dear Commons Community,

U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez said in an interview yesterday that more collective bargaining agreements are key to building a strong middle class.  Perez said he is optimistic about the continued positive trend in job growth after a massive 287,000 jobs were created in June. But he still thinks there’s lots of slack in the labor market that is holding back wage growth.   As reported by The Huffington Post, Peres said:

“One of the ways to boost wage growth is to unionize…

Perez participated in the discussions between Verizon and the Communications Workers of America back in May, which helped resolve a 40,000-worker strike…

“Those are really good middle-class jobs,” he said of the Verizon workers’ jobs. “The more you strengthen collective bargaining, the more you strengthen the middle class. You get that through either unionization, or a workplace culture where workers have a strong voice at the table.”

At this stage in the economic recovery, the problem isn’t necessarily that unemployment is too high — it’s been below 5 percent for months — but that workers who do still have jobs aren’t seeing more in their paychecks. According to the latest jobs report, released Friday, average hourly wages grew just 2.6 percent over the last year.

Sluggish wage growth can be a sign that there is still room for improvement before employers really feel the market pushing them to pay workers more.

“That’s not nearly where I want it to be, it’s not where workers need it to be, but it’s headed in the right direction,” said Perez.

The overall strength of the economy also obscures some serious variation in unemployment rates when you break down the labor force by race. The unemployment rate is 4 percent for whites and 3.5 percent for Asians. By contrast, it is 8.6 percent for blacks and 5.8 percent for Latinos. 

This isn’t a new phenomenon: The unemployment rate has reflected structural racial inequality for years. However, Perez said these disparities could be reduced through both immigration reform and raising the federal minimum wage.”

Perez is saying something important here!

Tony