The past year has seen growing unionization efforts by employees of high-profile US organizations like Amazon and Starbucks. Caroline Hanley argues that these unions’ recent organizing successes will improve the lives of American workers, but labor law reform is urgently needed to support the wider union movement and address the American inequality problem.
After decades of falling membership, labor unions are making a comeback in the American public’s consciousness. The cover of the July 18 issue of New York Magazine featured Chris Smalls, president of the recently formed Amazon Labor Union. Since last year, organizers like Smalls have led efforts by employees of major US corporations such as Amazon and Starbucks to form unions to campaign for better pay and working conditions. But what’s driving this resurgence in labor organizing? At the risk of stating the obvious, the United States has an inequality problem.
Recent debate about whether wage growth is driving inflation notwithstanding (it’s not), real earnings have been stagnant for most American workers for the past forty years despite aggregate gains in productivity, profitability, and economic growth. The distribution of income and wealth is more unequal today than it has been since the Great Depression. While college-educated workers fare better than their counterparts in this highly polarized labor market, higher education is no longer an effective insurance policy against economic insecurity, and its benefits are...
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