The Economic Policy Institute is one of the very few think tanks in Washington, D.C., that is not funded by Bill Gates or the Waltons. It is openly on the side of working people. It does valuable research. During the pandemic, unionized workers fared slightly better than non-union workers.
This study shows dramatically that as unions decline, income inequality grows.
Figure B in this article shows that as the percent of people in unions declined, the share of income going to the top 10% increased.
Union membership reached a peak (about 33% of all workers) in the late 1940s-early 1950s.
Since then, the spread of anti-union laws (so-called “right to work” laws) has caused a sharp decline in union jobs.
The anti-union movement has been funded over the years by big business and billionaires, of course. They are now fighting the movement for a $15 an hour minimum wage. They live in luxury but don’t understand why working people need a living wage just to pay the rent and put food on the table.
Over the past decade, I have repeatedly defended unions, and extremely stupid people have accused me of being paid by the teachers’ unions. Jeanne Allen of the pro-choice Center for Education Reform once tweeted that my “beautiful home” in Brooklyn Heights must have been paid for by the unions. Yes, I did live in a beautiful brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, but I paid for it myself, without a penny from any union.
I defend unions because they provide a pathway into the middle class for people who are poor and working class. By joining a union, they are part of an organization that will make sure they have a good salary, health benefits, and a pension. Why is so problematic for rightwing conservatives and the 1%? Billionaire John Arnold is offended by public pensions, and he has spent a few millions trying to persuade the public that pensions are bankrupting the public sector. I think it is more likely that the public sector has been starved by tax breaks for billionaires.
So, yes, I would like to witness the rebirth of unions in my lifetime. They are the very best protection for working people. They build a middle class. Our society needs more unions, a higher minimum wage, and representation for all workers.
Education Trust, which is amply funded by billionaires, says it advocates for equity when it promotes standardized testing. Twenty years of standardized testing shows that this is a useless and fraudulent effort. Education Trust should be advocating for unions if it really wants equity.
Let us hope that billionaires like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and Eli Broad, to mention just a few, will invest in union organizing drives. If they truly want to promote equity in American society, that is the best way to advance the cause. Not charter schools. Not vouchers. Not standardized testing. Unions. Unions that assure a decent standard of living and a decent retirement for every member.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The war on unions has several aspects, one of the social ones is the demonizing of unions. I have encountered a great many people who are quite anti-union and I ask them “Have you ever been a member of a union?” Most say no. I then ask them where their attitude comes from if not direct experience. Most have no idea.
It seems there is a bit of mirroring going on. People who interact with the very well-to-do often exhibit attitudes identical to those of the well-to-do as a way of gaining their confidence, so sales people. brokers of this or that, often espouse the attitudes of those they wish to sell to. The well-to-do have no particular knowledge of unions, but they have been proselytized by the people being the war and provided with talking points etc. The well-to-do also have no compunctions about sharing their attitudes with the people who work for them, reinforcing that if people want to continue to work for them, they need to adopt that attitude.
One interesting point of this “war” is that labor history has been barred from US classrooms, al least until one gets to college. If actual labor history were taught it might be “game over” for the plutocrats war on unions. Every effort to include labor history in US History classes in the states has been blocked by a tsunami of money and influence from the monied interests in this country.
Also interesting is that Canada has suffer no such reduction in union jobs. The “war” was on American unions from American wealthy interests and is clearly not based upon union behaviors, etc. or the effect would also be seen in Canada.
Actually Canada’s Unionization rate has dropped as well just nowhere as much . From the high thirties to the low 30s . Two parts to that story . Canada’s Public Sector is 5% larger and is Unionized at a staggering 78% Total Private sector unionization is only sitting at 16% Two parts to that story . Unionized Industries in Canada have been hit with the same Globalization and automation (in the 80s ) that hit American Industry diminishing the percentage of employment in those sectors . Part two the Thatcher ,Reagan ,Friedman Neo liberal assault is Global.
Spot on. The demonizing of unions and union members is constant and unrelenting. Words such as thugs, lazy and entrenched are used when describing union people by the union haters. The supposed liberty lovers, libertarians, hate unions, especially public sector unions. The libertarians claim that there is no need for unions, there are enough laws on the books to protect workers and, anyway, if you are doing your job properly you have no need for a union. All nonsense and blarney. We need unions now, it is the only way to level the playing field.
Mustn’t get your hands dirty when stepping on someone’s neck. (Translation: the plutocrats generally “hire” surrogates to do their dirty work.)
Steve,
About 10 years ago, I was asked to review high school history textbooks’ treatment of labor unions. They barely get a mention in the textbooks. They never existed.
The pandemic has proven that union jobs offer more stability and security than non-union employment. In the South there is a large anti-union sentiment led by those on the right. Years of anti-union propaganda have resulted in those that would benefit from being in a union actually seeing unions as a negative force. In the South the main members of unions are municipal workers like the police and teachers. Perhaps this helps to explain the small increase in union membership among people of color that often work in government. Perhaps soon we will see an increase in unions among nurses as a result of the pandemic. Unions fight for better working conditions, benefits and job security. About 20% of nurses are currently unionized.
Thank you for your support for union membership. Unions helped build the middle class. Let’s hope they can help rebuild the middle class. Let’s also hope that the Biden administration can pass laws that will protect union membership and override the right to work laws.
The problem for anti-union politicians and activists and think tankers is they’ve never come up with anything else to replace the basic concept of a union.
They could have. They could have leveled the playing field a little thru regulation and pro-worker laws, but they were ideologically opposed to those too, so they fought all of them.
There’s really only two ways to level the playing field a little- regulatory, with state action, or thru a labor union, private actions and associations. Anti-union politicians and think tanks opposed both and ended up presiding over economic inequality that increased every year.
How did they think this would go? They gutted pro-worker regulation and laws AND sought to abolish the right to organize. What was supposed to replace that? Fairy dust? Some ridiculous notion of “empowering” workers with touchy feely slogans, like in the Obama Administration where they held worker “summits” but worked against unions and working people? What does that have to do with wages?
There’s not an endless number of schemes to replace regulation and labor unions. They haven’t come up with anything because there’s only those two options. They aren’t going to be able to “reinvent” their way out of this with summits of economists held at Ivy League universities. They’re going to have to actually DO something.
I think some unions grew out of trade guilds in Europe. Unions in this country have a long contentious past. Many have died fighting for the right to organize. The donor class tries to vilify unions because non union workers are easier to control and intimidate.
Unfortunately those (AFL) Trade Guilds , one of which I belong to . Lost their way very early in the history of American Unions. They were all too willing and still are; to sell out other workers for the narrow self interest of their members . Even today solidarity between unions in the same industry is a BIG!!! problem . Construction Trade Unions in NYC in an existential fight, losing market share in a Billionaire driven assault by developers , as they sell out looking to cut their own short term deals. Unions spending more time raiding each others membership than expanding. Jack London would be saying I told you so if he were alive today.
If and it is a big if , the PRO act brings back the Secondary Boycotts we will see if things change . The success of European Unions in great part is due to them being sectorial. Example: When the bus driver goes on strike the airline shuts down .
The Union Movement becomes a Social Movement as it was in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries when “Socialists ” lead the charge or it will disappear. But to do that it has to be in the forefront on issues like Health Insurance , Public Education k-U , Climate Change , Voting Rights and the Fight for a living wage. Not the anchor.
The “they ” you refer to ,does not want to do something . “They” never have and never will . The problem is the masses do not force them to do the things that must be done. The reasons for that: .
“The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority”. Howard Zinn.
The NYC Labor Leader who was responsible for the AFT not going down in flames after its failed 1960 strike in NYC. By threatening the Mayor Robert Wagner with sacking the JFK election if striking teachers were fired.
That Labor Leader when asked on his death bed in 1986 ,”when will workers and Unions reverse the decline ” his answer “When it gets bad enough”
Joel,
You are not referring to either Shanker or Gotbaum. They died later than 1986. Who was it?
The long answer which included a short biographical explanation of who that labor leader was, for those not from NYC and under 50 , is in mediation . The short answer is Harry VanArsdale ( Head of the Central Labor Council , Building Trades and electrical workers) who with Dubinsky from the ILGWU , Potofsky from the Amalgamated clothing workers called Wagner and the then the fix was in. With the help of Nelson Rockefeller who appointed only those three Labor Leaders to decide the fate of the UFT.
The absolute worst thing to do would be to turn to the think tanks and economists and politicians who happily presided over the EVER INCREASING income inequality of the last 30 years and hire them.
They failed. Their approaches made the problem worse. Time to look outside the echo chamber and hire someone else.
Your assumption is that these “Think Tanks ” ever wanted to solve the problem. The Labor friendly Think Tanks like EPI or CEPR have been marginalized by the dollars going to the Right Wing Neo Liberal publicity machines and the Corp Media who is happy to broadcast their narrative . Kristof being a perfect example but perhaps there is hope when even he opens his eyes .
Harry VanArsdale Jr was the head of the NYC Central Labor council which he created . As gruff a Labor Leader as he appeared to be, he was far more progressive than many of my current fellow (Trumpanzee ) tradesman realize. Not a Socialist ,however he certainly had no problem calling those Socialists Union activists like A. Philip Randolph friends . He modeled his own Local Electrical Union on a CIO model, inclusive of all aspects of the Electrical industry. That was heresy for a trade (guild) union in the 30s . Expanding into manufacturing, warehousing, delivery and even engineering and office staff .(Much later Telephone and Cable TV. )
He then goes on to organizing the City Central Labor Council to expand Labors influence in the City and a Labor Party (that failed ).
As well as being in the forefront of Civil rights, marching with King and Randolph. And integrating the apprenticeship to the consternation of his members. Long before court orders had to be issued to other NYC Trade Unions.
VanArsdale was skeptical that the Teachers could pull off a strike that would shut down the system in 1960 . At the Elementary School I was attending in Queens only two teachers were on the picket line. However when the Superintendent of Schools threatened to fire the few strikers who went out . VanArdale ,,Dubinsky of the ILGWU and Potofsky of the Amalgamated Clothing workers called Wagner and told him Kennedy can kiss the Election goodbye.
The teachers went back to work, the fix was in Nelson Rockefeller appointed the three labor leaders and only them to a commission to decide if the UFT should be certified .
This study and the statistics in it provide an excellent backdrop for analyzing corporate/private attitudes toward education. If one reads the fine print, studies the graphs, and knows the history, public sector unions were just forming or converting from non-union “associations” in the ’60’s as private sector unions were being decimated by the effects of automation and transference of manufacturing to non-union states or overseas. In short, the NEA, AFT, AFSCME, and SEIU became a huge factor in America’s unionization, while the UAW, AFL-CIO, etc. declined. So, the attack on schools with privatization, testing, standards, etc., were sometimes motivated by an honest desire to improve schools–as in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s support for NCLB–other support for the kinds of measures in the law and other similar laws, were no doubt motivated by a desire to weaken public sector unions.
I understand why Senators like Ted Kennedy supported NCLB in 2001. But after 20 years and very little change, why do Senators still support the same failed theories of carrots and sticks?
Because touting the narrative even when it fails, is easier then the real economic changes that would improve some schools. Plus it plays well with a segment of voters that pay high school taxes or high taxes whether it goes to schools or not. Even though those tax dollars are flowing unequally to schools whose students perform much better than those where students are not performing well .
Thus you get a Cuomo in 2010 running to reign in real estate taxes and runaway Teacher Unions. Implement Common Core and testing as well as Charters for NYC . . That plays very well in middle and upper middle class neighborhoods. Of course those high taxes in many cases are paying for world class educations with the home sales advertised by school district. My district even hires a coach for National Science competitions . You can guess the district by seeing who won them in the last 5-6 years.
And when 10 years +- into Common Core and testing ,when the change yields no improvement . Those higher taxed school districts don’t notice . They never had a problem to begin with , Common Core and the testing became the problem. In the School Districts where the problem exists we closed the school fired the teachers and like Ground Hog Day keep repeating the process.