We need Unions now more than ever to rebuild the middle class and raise up the poor. Fair wages, Healthcare and Retirement benefits, what's not to like? (Oh yeah, it might rob some billionaire of that extra yacht).
THIS is exciting! And, as you wrote in 2021, we need a general fund to support those who strike. I've been thinking about the proposed May 1 general strike and how to help those that are at risk for staying home. Union Now may be the start of helping making that happen! I'm in Chicago, and retired, but want to help! LFG! ✊🏼
I just signed up for $20 a month. I sure hope unions become a force for good. My mother had an awful experience with unions back in the 1970s. These guys did not seem to worry that they were driving the small business they were working for into bankruptcy.
Sounds great! Now, how about an online labor movement-sponsored bank or credit union that paid competitive interest rates on cd's, savings, and money market funds, made ethical investments, and plowed profits into labor organizing? Is that a crazy idea?
This complete socialist pinko commie pig bullshit.
This piece is a slick, nostalgic sales pitch for Union Now (the new donor pipeline launching with Bernie Sanders, Sara Nelson, and assorted left-wing union figures in NYC), but it rewrites history to blame “corporate America” for America’s economic woes while ignoring how unions and the Democratic Party actively accelerated the decline of U.S. manufacturing and working-class prosperity.
The author romanticizes the post-WWII era when one in three workers was unionized and claims this delivered “the greatest shared prosperity.” Peak union density (around 33-35% in the 1950s) coincided with strong manufacturing, but correlation isn’t causation. High unionization in heavy industry brought rigid work rules, frequent strikes, above-market wages, and gold-plated benefits that made U.S. factories less competitive globally. As international competition grew (especially from rebuilt Europe and Japan, then low-wage Asia), those costs became unsustainable. Unions didn’t just “defend workers” — they often guaranteed the destruction of the very jobs they claimed to protect by pricing American labor out of the market.
Studies show unionized manufacturing jobs cratered far faster than non-union ones. From the late 1970s onward, union demands contributed to plant closures and accelerated offshoring: companies faced the choice of endless concessions or moving production where labor was cheaper and rules were flexible. The threat (and reality) of offshoring further eroded union bargaining power, creating a vicious cycle. Automation played a role, but the rapid hollowing-out of Rust Belt communities wasn’t inevitable — it was hastened by labor costs and inflexibility that unions fought to preserve rather than adapt.
The Democratic Party were enthusiastic cheerleaders and enablers of this process. They pushed or supported trade deals that sped up the offshoring they now decry:
• NAFTA under Bill Clinton opened the floodgates to Mexico.
• Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and its WTO entry (also Clinton-era) supercharged the “China Shock,” displacing millions of manufacturing jobs as factories relocated to exploit dirt-cheap labor, weak environmental/labor standards, and currency manipulation.
• Democrats routinely sided with globalist corporate interests over domestic workers, framing opposition to these deals as “protectionist” or backward while blue-collar communities watched plants close and jobs vanish overseas.
This wasn’t neutral “capitalism at work.” It was policy choices that destroyed American industrial might in the name of cheap goods, elite cosmopolitanism, and “ending American elitism” (or whatever ideological justification was in vogue). The result? Stagnant wages for non-college workers, shattered communities, opioid crises in former manufacturing hubs, and the very inequality the author laments. Unions lost membership not primarily because of “corporate assault” or legal changes, but because their model became incompatible with a competitive global economy — and Democrats helped export the jobs rather than reforming labor rules for flexibility and competitiveness.
Now the same crowd (Bernie, union bosses) wants more money funneled into organizing drives, strikes against companies like Amazon or Starbucks, and “rebuilding working-class power.” This is the same playbook that contributed to the decline: adversarial, zero-sum tactics that treat employers as enemies rather than partners in creating sustainable jobs. Pouring donor cash into strikes and campaigns won’t magically restore manufacturing or shared prosperity — it risks repeating the cycle of higher costs, more offshoring (or automation), and further job losses in tradable sectors.
Real fixes for working people include:
• Pro-growth policies that make U.S. manufacturing competitive again (tax reform, deregulation, energy independence, skills training).
• Trade enforcement that counters mercantilism (like China’s) without self-sabotage.
• Labor approaches that emphasize cooperation, productivity, and adaptability over confrontation.
Unions can play a constructive role in some cases, but pretending their post-WWII peak was a golden age we should recreate ignores how their excesses and the Democratic embrace of globalism helped ship American industry overseas. “Up with the workers” sounds noble until you realize the policies being pushed helped put so many out of work in the first place. Rebuild power through better ideas and results, not by doubling down on the failed model that got us here.
It’s the same thing with the minimum wage. You dumbfucks don’t even realize that the minimum wage is a destructive force to the poor American worker. You’re too stupid to understand how it works against small business and the American worker while protecting corporate America and distorting capitalism.
How Minimum Wage Harms the Poor
Basic economics (and decades of empirical research) shows why: A mandated wage floor prices low-skilled, young, or inexperienced workers out of the job market. Employers facing higher labor costs respond by hiring fewer people, cutting hours, automating, reducing benefits, or raising prices. The workers who keep their jobs may earn more per hour, but many others — especially the most vulnerable — lose opportunities altogether or never get hired in the first place.
* Disproportionate harm to the poor and low-skilled: Teenagers, minorities, immigrants, high school dropouts, and entry-level workers suffer the most. Their equilibrium wages are naturally lower because they have less experience and productivity. The minimum wage acts like a barrier: if your skills are worth $8–10/hour to an employer, forcing $15+ means you simply don’t get the job. Studies consistently find negative employment effects for these groups, with teens and young adults hit hardest. This robs them of on-the-job training, work experience, and the first rung on the ladder to better-paying jobs.
* Hurts small businesses most: Small firms and startups operate on thin margins where labor is a big chunk of costs. They can’t easily absorb the hike through price increases (customers are price-sensitive) or automation (too expensive for mom-and-pop operations). Large corporations like Walmart, McDonald’s, or Amazon handle it better — they have scale, can raise prices slightly across millions of transactions, invest in kiosks/self-checkout, or shift to higher-skilled labor. The result? Minimum wage laws tilt the playing field toward big business, accelerate consolidation, and make it harder for new small competitors to enter or grow. This protects entrenched corporate America while crushing the entrepreneurial path that often employs the working poor.
* Doesn’t reliably reduce poverty: Many minimum-wage workers aren’t in poor households (they’re teens in middle-class families or secondary earners). Meanwhile, job losses or reduced hours can push some families deeper into poverty. Congressional Budget Office analyses and multiple studies show that while some low-wage earners gain income, the net effect on family poverty rates is often small, zero, or even negative when accounting for lost employment. The policy benefits some at the direct expense of others — hardly a win for the poor.
* Distorts capitalism and reduces opportunity: In a free labor market, wages reflect productivity, supply, and demand. Artificially inflating them creates shortages of jobs (excess supply of willing workers) and encourages substitution toward capital or offshoring. It slows wage growth for slightly higher-skilled workers (as employers compress pay scales) and discourages investment in human capital. The post-WWII union era you romanticize coincided with America’s temporary global dominance after competitors were bombed flat — not some sustainable union-powered utopia. When real competition returned, rigid labor costs (from unions and now minimum wage mandates) helped ship manufacturing overseas, exactly as my father witnessed at Ford with the UAW’s playbook of ever-higher demands without matching productivity gains.
Your “Union Now” rally with Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani isn’t going to fix this — it’s the same failed adversarial mindset that contributed to offshoring and inequality in the first place. Real help for working people comes from pro-growth policies that expand opportunity: skills training, trade enforcement against cheaters like China, deregulation that helps small businesses compete, and sound economics (start with Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom and his critiques of labor market interventions). Doubling down on mandates that price the poorest out of work while shielding big corporations isn’t “up with the workers” — it’s up with the useful idiots who keep repeating the same mistakes.
The pinko commie excitement for that NYC rally with Mamdani (and his radical associations) fits the pattern perfectly. Useful idiots on the left provide cover for forces that ultimately don’t share your values. History shows how that ends. Read the actual data instead of the propaganda — the minimum wage is textbook proof that good intentions + bad economics = harm to the very people you claim to champion.
We need Unions now more than ever to rebuild the middle class and raise up the poor. Fair wages, Healthcare and Retirement benefits, what's not to like? (Oh yeah, it might rob some billionaire of that extra yacht).
THIS is exciting! And, as you wrote in 2021, we need a general fund to support those who strike. I've been thinking about the proposed May 1 general strike and how to help those that are at risk for staying home. Union Now may be the start of helping making that happen! I'm in Chicago, and retired, but want to help! LFG! ✊🏼
I just signed up for $20 a month. I sure hope unions become a force for good. My mother had an awful experience with unions back in the 1970s. These guys did not seem to worry that they were driving the small business they were working for into bankruptcy.
wait didn't Nina Turner launch something very similar a few years ago ? who's behind this org and how is governance and distribution structured ?
Sounds great! Now, how about an online labor movement-sponsored bank or credit union that paid competitive interest rates on cd's, savings, and money market funds, made ethical investments, and plowed profits into labor organizing? Is that a crazy idea?
Amen.
This complete socialist pinko commie pig bullshit.
This piece is a slick, nostalgic sales pitch for Union Now (the new donor pipeline launching with Bernie Sanders, Sara Nelson, and assorted left-wing union figures in NYC), but it rewrites history to blame “corporate America” for America’s economic woes while ignoring how unions and the Democratic Party actively accelerated the decline of U.S. manufacturing and working-class prosperity.
The author romanticizes the post-WWII era when one in three workers was unionized and claims this delivered “the greatest shared prosperity.” Peak union density (around 33-35% in the 1950s) coincided with strong manufacturing, but correlation isn’t causation. High unionization in heavy industry brought rigid work rules, frequent strikes, above-market wages, and gold-plated benefits that made U.S. factories less competitive globally. As international competition grew (especially from rebuilt Europe and Japan, then low-wage Asia), those costs became unsustainable. Unions didn’t just “defend workers” — they often guaranteed the destruction of the very jobs they claimed to protect by pricing American labor out of the market.
Studies show unionized manufacturing jobs cratered far faster than non-union ones. From the late 1970s onward, union demands contributed to plant closures and accelerated offshoring: companies faced the choice of endless concessions or moving production where labor was cheaper and rules were flexible. The threat (and reality) of offshoring further eroded union bargaining power, creating a vicious cycle. Automation played a role, but the rapid hollowing-out of Rust Belt communities wasn’t inevitable — it was hastened by labor costs and inflexibility that unions fought to preserve rather than adapt.
The Democratic Party were enthusiastic cheerleaders and enablers of this process. They pushed or supported trade deals that sped up the offshoring they now decry:
• NAFTA under Bill Clinton opened the floodgates to Mexico.
• Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and its WTO entry (also Clinton-era) supercharged the “China Shock,” displacing millions of manufacturing jobs as factories relocated to exploit dirt-cheap labor, weak environmental/labor standards, and currency manipulation.
• Democrats routinely sided with globalist corporate interests over domestic workers, framing opposition to these deals as “protectionist” or backward while blue-collar communities watched plants close and jobs vanish overseas.
This wasn’t neutral “capitalism at work.” It was policy choices that destroyed American industrial might in the name of cheap goods, elite cosmopolitanism, and “ending American elitism” (or whatever ideological justification was in vogue). The result? Stagnant wages for non-college workers, shattered communities, opioid crises in former manufacturing hubs, and the very inequality the author laments. Unions lost membership not primarily because of “corporate assault” or legal changes, but because their model became incompatible with a competitive global economy — and Democrats helped export the jobs rather than reforming labor rules for flexibility and competitiveness.
Now the same crowd (Bernie, union bosses) wants more money funneled into organizing drives, strikes against companies like Amazon or Starbucks, and “rebuilding working-class power.” This is the same playbook that contributed to the decline: adversarial, zero-sum tactics that treat employers as enemies rather than partners in creating sustainable jobs. Pouring donor cash into strikes and campaigns won’t magically restore manufacturing or shared prosperity — it risks repeating the cycle of higher costs, more offshoring (or automation), and further job losses in tradable sectors.
Real fixes for working people include:
• Pro-growth policies that make U.S. manufacturing competitive again (tax reform, deregulation, energy independence, skills training).
• Trade enforcement that counters mercantilism (like China’s) without self-sabotage.
• Labor approaches that emphasize cooperation, productivity, and adaptability over confrontation.
Unions can play a constructive role in some cases, but pretending their post-WWII peak was a golden age we should recreate ignores how their excesses and the Democratic embrace of globalism helped ship American industry overseas. “Up with the workers” sounds noble until you realize the policies being pushed helped put so many out of work in the first place. Rebuild power through better ideas and results, not by doubling down on the failed model that got us here.
I think it is very funny that you take the time to comment here but regarding your points, check this out:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-hammer-power-inequality-and-the-struggle-for-the-soul-of-labor-hamilton-nolan/9f678dc979fe7831?ean=9780306830921
Based on this comment, they’re going to need an AI summary.
What is up with these AI comment screeds? Have an original articulate thought please!
It’s the same thing with the minimum wage. You dumbfucks don’t even realize that the minimum wage is a destructive force to the poor American worker. You’re too stupid to understand how it works against small business and the American worker while protecting corporate America and distorting capitalism.
How Minimum Wage Harms the Poor
Basic economics (and decades of empirical research) shows why: A mandated wage floor prices low-skilled, young, or inexperienced workers out of the job market. Employers facing higher labor costs respond by hiring fewer people, cutting hours, automating, reducing benefits, or raising prices. The workers who keep their jobs may earn more per hour, but many others — especially the most vulnerable — lose opportunities altogether or never get hired in the first place.
* Disproportionate harm to the poor and low-skilled: Teenagers, minorities, immigrants, high school dropouts, and entry-level workers suffer the most. Their equilibrium wages are naturally lower because they have less experience and productivity. The minimum wage acts like a barrier: if your skills are worth $8–10/hour to an employer, forcing $15+ means you simply don’t get the job. Studies consistently find negative employment effects for these groups, with teens and young adults hit hardest. This robs them of on-the-job training, work experience, and the first rung on the ladder to better-paying jobs.
* Hurts small businesses most: Small firms and startups operate on thin margins where labor is a big chunk of costs. They can’t easily absorb the hike through price increases (customers are price-sensitive) or automation (too expensive for mom-and-pop operations). Large corporations like Walmart, McDonald’s, or Amazon handle it better — they have scale, can raise prices slightly across millions of transactions, invest in kiosks/self-checkout, or shift to higher-skilled labor. The result? Minimum wage laws tilt the playing field toward big business, accelerate consolidation, and make it harder for new small competitors to enter or grow. This protects entrenched corporate America while crushing the entrepreneurial path that often employs the working poor.
* Doesn’t reliably reduce poverty: Many minimum-wage workers aren’t in poor households (they’re teens in middle-class families or secondary earners). Meanwhile, job losses or reduced hours can push some families deeper into poverty. Congressional Budget Office analyses and multiple studies show that while some low-wage earners gain income, the net effect on family poverty rates is often small, zero, or even negative when accounting for lost employment. The policy benefits some at the direct expense of others — hardly a win for the poor.
* Distorts capitalism and reduces opportunity: In a free labor market, wages reflect productivity, supply, and demand. Artificially inflating them creates shortages of jobs (excess supply of willing workers) and encourages substitution toward capital or offshoring. It slows wage growth for slightly higher-skilled workers (as employers compress pay scales) and discourages investment in human capital. The post-WWII union era you romanticize coincided with America’s temporary global dominance after competitors were bombed flat — not some sustainable union-powered utopia. When real competition returned, rigid labor costs (from unions and now minimum wage mandates) helped ship manufacturing overseas, exactly as my father witnessed at Ford with the UAW’s playbook of ever-higher demands without matching productivity gains.
Your “Union Now” rally with Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani isn’t going to fix this — it’s the same failed adversarial mindset that contributed to offshoring and inequality in the first place. Real help for working people comes from pro-growth policies that expand opportunity: skills training, trade enforcement against cheaters like China, deregulation that helps small businesses compete, and sound economics (start with Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom and his critiques of labor market interventions). Doubling down on mandates that price the poorest out of work while shielding big corporations isn’t “up with the workers” — it’s up with the useful idiots who keep repeating the same mistakes.
The pinko commie excitement for that NYC rally with Mamdani (and his radical associations) fits the pattern perfectly. Useful idiots on the left provide cover for forces that ultimately don’t share your values. History shows how that ends. Read the actual data instead of the propaganda — the minimum wage is textbook proof that good intentions + bad economics = harm to the very people you claim to champion.