Author: Justin Lin

The United States was historically one of the major centers of the left-wing labor movement. It was natural for that movement to form around the start of the 20th century, as a large number of immigrants and the rapid industrialization of the U.S. gave way to a massive working-class population. The development of industry coincided with the rise of capitalists and rich industrialists, who prioritized maximizing production and profit over the welfare of their workers. 

Many of these workers worked at factories and warehouses in horrid conditions, with little pay, for long arduous hours. The industry at the time was dangerous and deaths, workplace injuries, and child labor were commonplace. Working-class Americans formed labor unions to unite together to fight these conditions. Unions allowed for workers to collectively bargain for better conditions or pay, and together, they had the power to organize strikes or even sabotage workplaces in some cases. This led to a pushback from anti-union business leaders who saw them as a threat to their profits and led to horrific incidents such as the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, in which 25 striking workers and their families were killed by soldiers. John D. Rockefeller is widely accused of having orchestrated this killing. Despite this, unions continued to grow throughout the early 20th century, peaking around 1954 with 35% of US salaried workers belonging to a union. Today, this number has declined to about 10.3%

Why did this happen? A century of institutionalized anti-communist and anti-leftist propaganda has destroyed the momentum of unionization in the U.S. In the era of McCarthyism and unfounded cold war paranoia, it was easy to accuse union leaders and popular leftist figures of being communists or communist sympathizing. Nobody wanted anything to do with them, while anything remotely sympathetic to the leftist cause was taught to our children as evil. We in America love to paint ourselves as the savior, and the “other” as the enemy. This is especially true when it comes to dealing with countries in the Soviet or Chinese sphere of influence. We can still witness this today, with conservatives accusing democratic party members of being communists simply for being to the left of the republicans, while in actuality they are far more centrist than popular U.S. media likes to portray them. Stagnant wages and an economic recession in the 70s and 80s caused workplaces to mass lay off workers, with many willing to work with lower wages at non-unionized workplaces just to find jobs. Political parties at the time also pushed that taxes were evil and that deregulation was the only way to achieve prosperity. One only has to work hard and benefits will pay off, they said.

One must only look at the U.S. today to see where that’s gotten us. Wages have not risen at the same rate as inflation has, commodities are more expensive than ever, and deregulation of real estate has allowed foreign investors and rich landlords to charge more than ever for rent, leading to one of the highest homeless rates in comparable OECD nations. Many European countries with generous social safety nets today have high unionization rates. Iceland’s unionization rate sits at 92% and around 65% in other nordic countries. Even in countries with low unionization rates, collective bargaining agreements cover a vast majority of workers. European countries also have many unions for white-collar workers, which is practically nonexistent in the U.S. We in the U.S. are far too concerned with worker productivity and profitability when we should be caring about our workers. This doesn’t lead to happy workers and is a large part of why so many people feel like they work a dead-end job, with no way to advance in society. Workers are easily exploited to work long hours for little pay. We love saying that the stock market is strong and therefore the economy is strong, but who does it actually benefit? The S&P500 was up 27% through the year 2021, yet 20 million Americans lived in food and rent insecure households. The worker is the backbone of any company, and when united together, holds far more power than any individual in the workplace. This pandemic has only exemplified the need for unions, and it’s time for Americans to take their labor back from those who exploit us.