This is an important read on how the power of American labor has been systematically dismantled, and how it might be rebuilt. The destruction of a century's worth of labor organizing in the U.S....
This is an important read on how the power of American labor has been systematically dismantled, and how it might be rebuilt. The destruction of a century's worth of labor organizing in the U.S. has been crucial to the resurgence of plutocracy here.
Again, apologies to the non-U.S. readers, but consider this a warning and caution as we've become the laboratory for bad ideas globally.
The passage of right-to-work laws, we find after comparing neighboring counties straddling state right-to-work lines, lowers Democratic vote shares and turnout up and down the ballot. Weaker unions mean that fewer working-class Americans are asked to participate in elections; campaign contributions from unions to Democrats also fall after the passage of those laws. After the passage of right-to-work laws, states are less likely to elect working-class candidates to state legislatures and Congress and state economic policy moves sharply to the ideological right. In one especially important example, we find that states are less likely to pass minimum-wage increases in the wake of right-to-work laws.
In short, it is hard to imagine either a sustained left or Democratic Party without a vibrant labor movement. As a result, labor reform ought to be a “day one” issue for Democrats that can then pave the way for other progressive legislative measures and eventual electoral victories.
"You can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility." -unidentified “Irishman” (not Winston Churchill) ;)
we've become the laboratory for bad ideas globally.
i think one of the things that this article doesn't touch on but which has also seriously contributed to the collapse of organized labor in the US and which will need to likely change for it to be...
i think one of the things that this article doesn't touch on but which has also seriously contributed to the collapse of organized labor in the US and which will need to likely change for it to be rebuilt is the fact that literally none of our major labor unions are particularly radical anymore, and haven't been for like, 80 years. in the days of yore you still had a lot of middle-of-the-road groups, but you also had groups like the IWW who straight up wanted to overthrow the employing class and there were a shit ton of socialists and anarchists that were big in the US labor movement such that the middle-of-the-road organizations still had to and did put in the work. nowadays, with leftism still recovering from the backbreaker that was most of post-WWII politics, all that's really left are the middle-of-the-road groups like the AFL-CIO which seem to do more lobbying of democrats and upholding progressivism and liberalism than actually organizing people--and really, if you're trying to revitalize the labor movement, that's probably not going to do it because people want and need more than that.
This is an important read on how the power of American labor has been systematically dismantled, and how it might be rebuilt. The destruction of a century's worth of labor organizing in the U.S. has been crucial to the resurgence of plutocracy here.
Again, apologies to the non-U.S. readers, but consider this a warning and caution as we've become the laboratory for bad ideas globally.
"You can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility."
-unidentified “Irishman” (not Winston Churchill) ;)
i think one of the things that this article doesn't touch on but which has also seriously contributed to the collapse of organized labor in the US and which will need to likely change for it to be rebuilt is the fact that literally none of our major labor unions are particularly radical anymore, and haven't been for like, 80 years. in the days of yore you still had a lot of middle-of-the-road groups, but you also had groups like the IWW who straight up wanted to overthrow the employing class and there were a shit ton of socialists and anarchists that were big in the US labor movement such that the middle-of-the-road organizations still had to and did put in the work. nowadays, with leftism still recovering from the backbreaker that was most of post-WWII politics, all that's really left are the middle-of-the-road groups like the AFL-CIO which seem to do more lobbying of democrats and upholding progressivism and liberalism than actually organizing people--and really, if you're trying to revitalize the labor movement, that's probably not going to do it because people want and need more than that.