Union Perspectives

We must revisit the wage stagnation that has been going on for the last 34 years, which has exacerbated the wage inequality and lead to the decline of the unions from 35 percent in 1954 to a total of 11.3 percent of workers unionized or 6.7 percent if you count only the private sector workers. This decline has led to a downward trend of workers’ power to protect themselves from corporation greed; but what it has also done is decimate the middle class and those used to have now have been pushed down into the bottom of the social class of the have very littles or have nothings. Consider this: cash in a capitalist system is just like fertilizer to a farmer, the more cash you put in the pockets of the workers the healthier the capitalist system. If you withhold the cash it’s just like withholding the fertilizer from crops you end up with stunted plants and your economy won’t grow. Austerity is withholding fertilizer on steroids. So at this time there is just the 1 to 5 percent—and the bot