Lawmakers Must Empower Unions To Combat Growing Inequality In US | Talking Points Memo

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at the Economic Policy Institute, and was reposted with permission of the authors.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1245678

And people idolize pro athletes (who are unionized) as gods, all while trashing unions for themselves.

Truly, the Right Wing has become the Main Opinion for too many of us.

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I’m not trying to bash the union idea, but how does a union successfully operate in a company where voluntary job tenure is relatively short? How would a union keep its membership united during a work stoppage? What would be the benefits of staying with the same employer?

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When all the foreign car manufacturers moved to the US, guess where they moved? The southern states where there are not unions and they can get workers for cheap.
If fast food places, Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon had to unionize and pay their employees reasonable wages, none of these places would be the darlings of America.

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You are certainly NOT trying to bash the union idea. Rather, you are responding to realities in the workplace. All of which would have to be dealt with, creatively.

I do believe, however, that there are ways through this problem.

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The business roundtable recently recommended treating workers with “dignity”. While one wonders why the BRT needed to announce this as if it were a radical governance concept, I’ll believe it when there is tangible evidence of their supporting their workers’ efforts to organize and “dignity” reflected in contract terms. If we really want to address inequality, we need to support workers’ organizing and the unions to equilibrate the power dynamic of management v workers.
“Right to work laws” are an affront to that objective for starters.

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This is what I would have liked to see in the article, that creativity applied to the 21st century workplace.

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The gig economy isn’t conducive to unionization. I suspect the gig economy rose because there was no unionization. The last company I worked direct for did exactly what someone above wrote: closed the union shop and moved south and to Mexico.

The benefit of my gig economy has been to see, with every client, why I would never want to be a direct employee in a US firm. Not sure how unionization would help in office environments, but I think the day has passed.

To be honest, there are enough jobs out there that, if one feels they’re being abused, they can move on. Few companies offer pensions anymore, so what does anyone have to lose?

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There are organizational, consortium-based strategies and I am positive that there are analysts and social scientists who are familiar with the challenges.

It is amazing the degree to which those trained in the social sciences (like history) which emphasize group behavior are not heard from in public discourse (except the clever prof who gets in a position to hawk a book on a Talk Show).

Everything has to be reduced to sound bites and fit into commercial breaks.

Has there ever been programming similar to what an average college freshman has to endure on a weekly basis:

SHUT THE FUCK UP
SIT DOWN
TAKE OUT A NOTE PAD
LISTEN

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Hitler’s father, who was born in 1837, retired and went on a pension, which he used until he died.

We are a society which goes forward and backward.

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When I lived in Seattle I had a friend that worked as a carpenter for the city of Seattle and they were all unionized.
There was/is still a union for office workers. Don’t have direct knowledge of it but I worked for a friend that had a small union print shop so we used to get print orders for business/Dems that supported unions.

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As of 2018:

Among occupational groups, the highest unionization rates in 2018 were in protective service occupations (33.9%) and in education, training, and library occupations (33.8%). Unionization rates were lowest in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (2.4%); sales and related occupations (3.3%); computer and mathematical occupations (3.7%); and in food preparation and serving related occupations (3.9%).

 

As of 2018:

Among states, Hawaii and New York had the highest union membership rates (23.1% and 22.3%, respectively), while North Carolina and South Carolina had the lowest (2.7% each).

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Happy Labor Day to you, your friends, and everyone else.

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Even though I moved from there 5 years ago, those two friends are among my oldest and dearest.
Happy Labor Day to you too!

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If fast food places, Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon had to unionize and pay their employees reasonable wages, none of these places would be the darlings of America.

Bullshit. Do you really think Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage? You know of course Walmart structures their employee wages so that you get to subsidize their livelihood, and Amazon showed a profit of 12 billion last year and paid zero in corporate taxes (actually received a a corporate tax rebate $129 million) and treats their employees like shit.

But a $15 minimum wage and union participation will bankrupt the country!

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Worth reading. Amazon, for example, patented a wrist band that buzzes if it senses you’re working too slowly. The future of work is future of artificial intelligence, surveillance, and robotics coming together to make human beings the servants of the machines. The machines will be the servants of the oligarchs.

Already, human beings are involuntarily involved in beta-testing of self-driving cars by just walking around. You get hit or run over by a Tesla running on fake “Auto-Pilot?” Too bad. Elon Musk doesn’t give a damn.

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I’ve been commenting on this very issue in other threads: it is and will be an almost required necessity in any real attempt at not only reversing the maw of inequality, but actually needed to have a sustainable Economy.

It is not any coincidence that inequality has materially grown over the last few decades as union membership has declined.

I’ve stated that we absolutely need someway of getting the very bottom of the job market (Fast Food workers and Janitorial workers) unionized. If we can’t even accomplish that, then you will continue to see how the Collective Action dilemma will inexorably drag down everyone’s wages.

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Many people think Andrew Yang’s proposal for a guaranteed income for every American is absurd, but he is actually looking into the future and seeing what is coming.

What happens if you’re 55 years-old, college-educated, and performing well in your job, and then you’re replaced by a robot or AI? What are you going to do? Re-train? For what job? Or starve?

That is what is coming.

What I meant to express is that if these companies paid workers more they would have to then raise their prices, then they would no longer be as cheap and people wouldn’t flock there as much. Walmart is known for screwing their suppliers as low as possible or they won’t carry what they provide.
Yes, I know they can afford it they just don’t want to treat their employees right and those on the top can never have enough money.

PS Just because you didn’t understand or disagreed with what I wrote, the “bullshit” comment was not particularly necessary.

PS Just because you didn’t understand or disagreed with what I wrote, the “bullshit” comment was particularly necessary.

I’m sure you meant unnecessary. Sorry, but it was necessary and I kinda had an idea what you meant but it wasn’t close to what you meant to say. Also, so they raise their prices, so what. Playing out what you had in mind, it would result in employees having a living wage - and maybe even a bit of discretionary purchasing power, which is what creates a healthy sustainable economy - for everyone - including living wage consumers. And people would still shop at Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon.

Forgive my attitude, I’m pissed at TPM for even fucking bothering with this story when they have hardly made it an issue in past years. When did TPM become a ‘populist’ site? Marshall is far from progressive.