Union Perspectives

The stagnation of wages fits the narrative of class polarization. One of the reasons is the loss of unions. Our union workers were at 11.3 percent in 2013 versus 20 percent in 1983. This loss of good union paying jobs has taken money of out the economy. It is what the big nonunion box stores call “Merchant Capital,” which is the spendable income of the workers. As wages stay low or go even lower there is less and less merchant capital, and what money that is left then goes to the top 1 percent. Think Walmart’s $2.53 trillion, yes, Walmart, low pay, so-called “low prices,” and union-free business model delivers huge riches to the Arkansas Waltons. So, the day of denying the impact of rising income inequality is over. It is now destroying families. It is destroying other businesses, our democracy, and our country as we used to know it when we had a good robust middle class, a middle class that drove the consumer economy. To get this back, organized labor here and abroad must play a role...