What is a union? It’s simple, really. Unions are working people standing together.

In our grandparents generation, working people stood together in their unions to create the 40-hour work week, paid vacations and good, American, wages.

Sitting across from employers at the negotiating table, they made American companies the envy of the world and built our middle class, brick by brick.

But now that middle-class is being systematically dismantled by Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists  outsourcing our jobs and slashing wages and health care to get bigger bonuses for themselves. Big corporations and CEOs are demanding more corporate tax breaks even if it means teachers who challenge our kids and firefighters who put their lives on the line lose their jobs.

With no one sitting across from them at the table negotiating for working families, CEOs walk away with bigger bonuses and workers walk away wondering how they’ll feed their families.

Today, the only thing that stands in the way of the CEOs and corporate lobbyists is what stood in their way in our grandparent’s generation: working people standing together.

That’s why workers and their unions are innovating to keep California competitive by retraining workers for new industries, partnering with small businesses to keep jobs here at home, and fighting alongside parents for smaller class sizes so teachers can teach and students can learn.

Want to learn more about unions? Check out these helpful resources: