The state of labor in America
For decades corporate profits have sored while the wages of the American Working Class have failed to keep up with the increasing cost of food, housing, and other essential needs. The 40 hour work week and the 8 hour day that union workers fought for and that helped to create the Working Middle Class have all but disappeared. Every year working class folk have to work longer and harder for less while corporate profits skyrocket, but that is what happens when you don't have strong unions.
A 2020 Galop Poll shows 65% Americans approve of labor unions. Public support for labor unions has been generally rising since hitting its lowest point of 48% in 2009, during the Great Recession. Yet, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics union membership is less than 10% nation wide and in 2019 only 8.9% of Oregon's 1,772,000 workers were members of a union.
We have to aske our selves if 65% of American workers want a union why are less that 10% of American workers unionized? The answer is poor leadership and a lack of solidarity among union members and workers in general.
We have union bosses that prefer to rub elbows with politicians while looking down their noses at their working class members. This leads to union members feeling frustrated and ignored which weakens the union and the labor movement as a whole. Organizing to get politicians elected instead of organizing workers in our community to unionize is one of the biggest reasons we have seen a decline of unions.
Its time we stop begin politicians for table scraps, it's time they fear us, fear the American Working Class. We don't need a violent revolution we need a labor revolutions. We need to engage with our communities, support both other unions and non-union workers. We need to bring back the picket line, the boycott, the general strike.
The most successful strikes of recent years, like the West Virginia Teachers strike were not won in spite of the union bosses. They were Wild Cat strikes, that means they union bosses came to an agreement with the bosses and the union members told both the union bosses and management to take a long walk of a short pier, they were still going on strike. They will tell you a Wild Cat Strike is illegal, a General Strike is illegal, but the only illegal strike is a failed strike.
