Changing Labor Laws

Guest: Patrick Flavin, PhD, Assistant Professor of Political Science in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences A key source of votes and funding for the Democratic Party is in flux. The party’s likely candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, has already been endorsed by large unions representing the majority of state and local employees and teachers across the country. She’ll need their support to win because the nation’s eight million government workers represented by labor unions are central to Democratic election strategy. But the winds may be shifting. Overall union membership is in decline, states are curtailing collective bargaining rights and a pending Supreme Court case could weaken the influence of unions in politics.