SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: NPR.
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STACEY VANEK SMITH, HOST:
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Stacey Vanek Smith. 2021 has been an extraordinary year for the U.S. labor market - record numbers of workers quitting, millions of open jobs, wages rising across the board. In a lot of ways, workers have more power right now than they've had in decades. And they're using it. People are switching careers, getting raises and going on strike. Tens of thousands of workers in the U.S. have gone on strike in the last few months alone.
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VANEK SMITH: Today on the show, we talk with Erik Loomis, author of "A History Of America In Ten Strikes." He talks about the history of unions in the U.S., where they are now and what he sees as the future of organized labor.
Erik Loomis is the author of "A History Of America In Ten Strikes." And Erik, I'd love to start out in the early days of organized labor in the U.S. This is the mid-1800s. Everything is pretty scattered, pretty disorganized. When does it become clear that unions are going to play a pretty major role in the U.S. economy?
ERIK LOOMIS: Probably the biggest moment where it seems very clear that unions are going to start playing a critical role in American life is 1886 with the eight-hour day strikes. You know, what had happened in previous decades is that you had the development of railroads. You have the development of monopoly capitalism. People like...
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