We wrote a piece this week called, After Dimon's DEI comments, JP Morgan employees should unionize. At a posh Davos Conference, Dimon who makes 393 times the median worker at JP Morgan said things like, “Yeah, I’m not quite sure what gender equity means as opposed to treating everyone fairly, decently and honestly.” Cool guy, right?

Some in the business press praised Dimon for saying he would continue DEI programs at JP Morgan. Unfortunately, based on his own words, it seems a lot of those programs are not rooted in social equity.

EPI’s Findings Are Amazing

While Jamie was lighting the business internet ablaze at Davos, a more important article popped into our inbox. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) brought together several researchers and found that the impact of unionization is deep, far-reaching, and equity inducing.

EPI found that:

• Unions members have less of a racial and ethnic pay gap
• Racial wealth gaps are also smaller for union members
• Women’s pay is higher when they are union members
• Unions protect workers from discriminatory and retaliatory firings
• Unions strengthen democracy

If you don’t do anything else equity related this week, we recommend you read this article.

The Paradox of Corporate DEI Initiatives

Corporate DEI programs often end up being tokenization at best and exploitation at worse. Tokenization is when one member of a group is held up as an outlier example of how successful {insert group here} can be at {insert company name here}.  Exploitation is when you look at using the bodies, racial identities, gender identity, disability, and/or ethnicity to curry favor with a community and exploit that communities resources or asymmetric knowledge.

We’ve also seen over that young adults want a different kind of work experience.  A work experience that allows them to be their whole selves. Well, more unionization is looking like the main way to achieve this objective.

Not to mention that Unions bring democratic process into the workplace and EPI found that union members are 12% more likely to vote in governmental elections.

There are lots of examples of fantastic blue collar unions. But if you are a white collar employee you too should consider unionizing.

Unions Empower Community At Work

We spend 8 to 12 hours a day at least 5 days a week at work in America. So, if you want to feel better at work, more protected, freer to be yourself, and you think others might feel the same, consider starting a union.

• AFL-CIO gives 4-steps to starting a union
• EPI reports union membership increased by 200,000 people in 2022
• SAG-Aftra strike results
• List of white-collar labor unions
• Employers will resist, be careful and protect yourself and community