The Stunning Rebirth of the American Labor Movement
As unions gained leverage at the workplace, they also gained political power. Unions supported major federal laws — Medicare and Medicaid, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the Family and Medical Leave Act. They became the major force countering the growing political power of large corporations.
But since the late 1970s, union power has been waning. As a result, the wages of production workers have been nearly stagnant, adjusted for inflation. And workers have lost pension benefits and job security.
Think about it. More than four decades of near flat wages, even though the United States economy is now more than three times the size it was four decades ago.
Where did the economic gains go? Mostly to the top.
Whenever I bring this up, some people accuse me of being a class warrior. I’m not. I’m a class worrier. For years, I’ve worried about what would happen to America as the middle class continued to shrink and most of the economic gains went to the top.
Well, I think we’re now seeing the results, as millions of Americans have grown so cynical and despairing about their chances to make it that they’re even willing to support an authoritarian sociopath for president.
As the voices of workers became muted inside corporations, their voices also became muted in Washington.
Why else would America enter into trade agreements that caused millions of working people to lose their jobs, without access to new ones paying them at least as much? Why else would entire regions of the nation be economically abandoned, without any concerted national effort to reverse the tide?
More states fell for the snake oil of so-called “right-to-work” laws, which should be called “right-to-work-for-less” laws.
Meanwhile, Wall Street was deregulated, allowing ever more of our economy to become dominated by the moneyed interests.
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