It’s Labor Day, my first not working in a very long time. Among other things, I was thinking about unions. To the best of my recollection, I have never belonged to one. Yet I have been a big fan of them.
“The early labor movement was… inspired by more than the immediate job interest of its craft members. It harbored a conception of the just society, deriving from… the republican ideals of the American Revolution, which fostered social equality, celebrated honest labor, and relied on an independent, virtuous citizenship.”
Organized labor unions have “fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired.”
One of the conclusions I’ve come to as a former business librarian is that when ownership/management treats workers equitably, the need/desire for unions declines significantly. I have been aware of employees who were offered membership in a union but declined because the benefits seemed fair.
On the other hand, I have some knowledge of the formation of two unions. Both are in Albany, created in the past quarter-century, and both were as a result of the churlishness of management.
In other labor news, I’ve read that the immigration crackdown is targeting labor protections. “Undocumented immigrants are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, but the administration has quietly eroded protections within a federal program for immigrants who come forward to report labor trafficking, sexual harassment and other forms of abuse. The administration is also attempting to crush a union representing immigration judges.”
Truthout says The Answer to Burn Out at Work Isn’t “Self-Care” — It’s Unionizing. “It’s true that healthy food, exercise, and sleep are important ways to deal with stress, and we could all use more of each. But eating a salad isn’t going to fix the systemic problems at your workplace.”
1 in 4 Americans works for a federal contractor. The regime is proposing to drop protections for LGBTQ employees. “Their latest proposed regulation out of the Department of Labor” adds “unprecedented religious exemptions to a long-standing executive order prohibiting discrimination against the employees of federal contractors that includes protections added by President Obama for sexual orientation and gender identity.” His successor promised to keep this order “intact,” but he’s gone back on his word.
Top executives are now earning 278 times more than the average American worker, up from a ratio of 58-to-1 in 1989. A new study, released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows CEO pay has grown more than 1,000% since 1978.
Pay for average workers, though, grew just 12% in the same time period. America’s chief executive officers were paid $17.2 million on average in 2018. Corporate greed is eviscerating the working class.