Union Perspectives

Why is the living wage so important? First, the “Have Littles” need to be and should be able to survive without government aide when they work. Second, is that getting the minimum wage to $15 to $18 an hour is the only way the little people can pry cash out of the hands of the hoarders and put in back into circulation. Increasing the minimum wage supports the spenders who will, with their buying habits, create more jobs to make and service the products that are purchased. This is also the reason that the $10 to $12 an hour will not work. It will only disqualify these workers from government aide; but the $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage would not only remove the need for government aide, but would also give the workers some disposal income. We, the workers, probably are the only means to pry this money from the greedy. The government will fight with lobbyists tooth and nail to stop a higher wage. Just look at one of the big reasons that the cash is growing in the hands of just a few a...

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...