A great reckoning has come for the American business model of labor exploitation — will corporations choose growing labor shortages and boycotts, or employee rights and fair pay? Although the top 10 percent in the U.S. own 70 percent of the U.S. wealth, the working class holds tremendous untapped power capable of transforming the corporatist modum operatus. We’re in the midst of a great labor awakening across the country — from the labor strikes, mass resignations, and boycotts. Time is up for corporatism and the trickle-down fairy tale stockholm syndrome America believed in all while wages haven’t kept up with the 57% rise in inflation & 176% rise in productivity over the past 50 years, while 29 million go without health insurance, and while 38 million go hungry in the wealthiest country on earth.
From John Deere to nurses to Kellogg plant workers — waves of strikes across the country are highlighting economic inequality amid a time of anti-union legislation and a widening wealth gap. Labor “shortages” are leveraging the working class’ voice in the conversation on harsh working conditions and stagnant pay. Over 100,000 unionized employees — from Hollywood production crew members, to John Deere factory workers and Kaiser Permanente nurses — overwhelmingly voted to authorize strikes.
This all comes during a time of worsening income inequality. Through 2020, Americans experienced mass hunger, unemployment, sickness, and an eviction crisis at a level not seen since the Great Depression through no fault of their own and with little relief. The other America —the billionaire class’ — has seen their wealth surpass a $1.9 trillion gain since mid-March, 2020 when most federal and state economic restrictions responding to the virus were in place. While over 70 million Americans filed for unemployment (40% of the labor force), evictions rose, and food banks ran out of food, 660 billionaires saw their wealth rise 40% to $4.1 trillion 10 months into the pandemic and Wall Street minted 56 new billionaires. This amount is two-thirds higher than the $2.4 trillion in total wealth held by the bottom half of the population of 165 million. The pandemic has exacerbated the nation’s economic inequality.
Wealth is quite literally being heinously stolen from workers. While 45 out of 50 of the biggest U.S. companies turned a profit since March, the majority of firms cut staff and gave most of the profits to shareholders. John Deere’s CEO for one, has seen his salary rise 160% during the pandemic, while the workers producing the wealth struggle for fair pay. The company made $2.75 billion in profit in 2020, paid out $1.3 billion in dividend payments and they bought back $750 million in stock on top of the obscene CEO pay increases.
Union members are simply demanding fair pay. John Deere offered an initial raise of 5-6% with a total increase in wages of 11% over 6 years, but inflation over the last year alone was 5%. (It is normally 2.5-3%.) After those 6 years they’d be earning less than they are now while the company keeps pumping up executive’s salaries and distributing worker-produced profits to shareholders.
Workers — unwilling to work starvation wage jobs subsidized by taxpayers through social programs — are en mass exodus. The U..S. had 10.4 million unfilled job openings in August, down from a record high of 11 million in July. Our front-line workers, so essential to our economy as the rest of America discovered, can’t afford their own survival.
The collective bargaining power of unions and progressives is what brought us the weekend, the 8-hour work-day, anti-trust laws — it outlawed child labor. Sadly, waning union power in recent decades has prevented further change towards justice and fairness. In 2020, there were just 11 major work strikes, while from 1950 to 1980, the U.S. saw an average of about 300 per year per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of 2020, only 11.% of the workforce was unionized, compared to 20% in 1983.
Despite the anti-union and labor rights efforts of the previous administration, which gave $2 trillion to wealthy Americans, Americans’ union approval is at a 60-year high. Over two-thirds of those surveyed and 77% of Americans 18-34 were in favor per a September Gallup poll. Democrats have been negotiating for an infrastructure package that would provide thousands of jobs to union workers. The conditions of the jobs, however, need an overhaul.
America must improve its plummeting living standards by doing more than clapping for our front-line workers who uphold our economy and line shareholders and executives pockets with their sweat and toil. As AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said, “This is the capitalist system that has driven us to the brink,” she added. “Inequality is just getting worse and worse. … We think unions are the solution.”
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