Today more than ever, unions and working people are in the crosshairs. And the Janus Supreme Court decision could very well weaken public labor unions even further. But at the same time, the extreme inequality that has come to define America — a country that's been seized by comically evil oligarchs — has created a new energy in the labor movement. The fortunes of the Democratic Party rise and fall with the power of organized labor, making this the concern of even the whitest of white-collar workers.

This reported piece at Harpers Magazine offers a nice overview of the state of organized labor in America as it faces down existential threats from above. A new generation of leaders insists it is up to the challenge, even as the percentage of workers in unions is at an all-time low.

Rand Wilson, now chief of staff for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 888 and formerly a strategist for the Teamsters during the successful United Parcel Service strike of 1997, sees danger and promise both. “The people who drop out of the union lose the right to vote. So you’re losing the most middle-of-the-road members, and certainly the most conservative members, who object to collective power. You’re left with hotheads—people like me—running the show.” For Wilson, “the beauty of labor organizations right now is that they’re inclusive of so many people.” It’s a beauty too seldom appreciated, not least of all among those whose favorite watchword is “diversity.” Since unions do not hire for the industries in which their members work, they can’t preordain consensus; they can achieve it only through struggle and debate. Wilson says the Janus decision may have the ultimate effect of moving unions toward “a more activist base.” The same may be true even of workers outside of unions or whose unions are weak. Notice how the recent wave of teacher strikes and protests has taken place mainly in “red states” (West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona) with right-to-work laws on the books.

That confidence in the face of overwhelming power is not unfounded. First, organized labor just clocked in with its highest approval rating in 15 years, at 62%. It's even higher amongst adults 18-34, at 65%.

Here’s a good breakdown of the demographics of that poll, to the right:

Even 45% of Republicans support unions. Part of that particular number comes from the fact that plenty of union members — especially in construction and other long-unionized fields — vote Republican. (A bummer, but from the start of the AFL, there have been unions that were less focused on social justice than preserving their particular lot.)

But still, union approval is steadily rising; it was at 47% in 2007. So why might public approval of unions be rising?

For one, people are discovering that declining union rates translates to lower pay for all workers.

A quick interlude: I had a panic attack at work this week when I saw a tweet with a sober reminder that Republicans have a 25% chance of keeping control of Congress this fall. So I created this fundraising page for the Democrats running in pure toss-up races this November. Right now, there are 28 of them. Please, give what you can — we need to win at least 23 seats this fall.

Here’s where we get to the part about saving unions: Undoubtedly, we need better labor protections and, just as significantly, better enforcement of those protections. A resurgence of grassroots organizing can help us elect officials who are more likely to enact those laws, and unions teaming up with community groups multiplies their efficacy.

But as union membership falls, even the best grassroots organizing may not be enough. As public support for workers’ rights grows, it becomes more conceivable that at least in progressive states, wage boards could set minimums across industries, which would be paired with social benefit policy that incentivize joining unions. It’s being proposed a lot of late in leading academic and influential think tank circles, meaning that it’s closer to being proposed by liberal lawmakers.

From Vox:

A paper by Center for American Progress’s David Madland calls for the creation of national wage boards, tasked with setting minimum wage and benefit standards for specific industries. Fast-food companies, say, would send representatives to meet with union officials and other worker representatives, and hammer out a deal that ensures workers get a fair shake. Same goes for nurses, or retail workers, or home health aides, or accountants. “Bargaining panels would have 11 members — five representing employers, five representing workers and one representing the government,” Madland explains. “The government representative would be the U.S. secretary of labor or their delegate. Employers would choose employer representatives through the employers’ industry associations.” Employees would be represented by unions, or other worker representatives. The secretary of labor would create separate boards for different industries and occupations, and work with unions and other worker groups to enforce the wage rules once they’re adopted. This may seem like an extreme idea, an unprecedented government and union intrusion into the free market. But it reflects a model already gaining steam in some liberal states (like New York and California), and which owes a lot to policies in Europe. It’s the latest sign that pro-labor voices in America are looking to counterparts in France, Germany, and elsewhere across the Atlantic for signs of how to revive the labor movement and get the working class’s wages rising again.

There’s a lot of good stuff in that article, with a multitude of ideas being batted around, not just for wages but the social safety net and workplace rights enforcement. Most aren’t immediate solutions. But as we’re seeing with Medicare for All, incrementalism is being rejected more and more as the policy becomes so tilted toward the 1%.

Despite Trump's promise to fight for the “forgotten man and woman," effective wages have actually gone down over the last year. Economic insecurity, in turn, continues to grow.

If labor unions had a stronger presence in the workplace, all workers would see bigger paychecks and better employee benefits, according to new research. Previous studies have suggested the decline of unions is directly related to an increase in wage inequality, and that affects all employees, according to Tom VanHeuvelen, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois. He has calculated just how much wages may be adversely affected: Nonunion workers would have seen 3% to 7% higher wage growth during their careers if U.S. labor unions were still strong.

Last month, I wrote a bit about the app-driven “gig economy," the splintering of work, the race to the bottom, and my experience with it. I try to supplement my income as a writer with freelance, but so many of the freelance gigs that were available in the past for decent wages are now given to the lowest bidder on freelance sites like Upwork and Fiverr.

This story in The Atlantic is a great, comprehensive look at the outsourcing of everything and the workers who both benefit and suffer from this development.

Decades ago, the only companies that outsourced work overseas were multinational corporations with the resources to set up manufacturing shops elsewhere. Now, independent businesses and individuals are using the power of the internet to find the cheapest services in the world too, and it’s not just manufacturing workers who are seeing the downsides to globalization. All over the country, people like graphic designers and voice-over artists and writers and marketers have to keep lowering their rates to compete. “There really is a race-to-the-bottom effect going on here, because there’s so much of an oversupply of workers,” Mark Graham, a professor of internet geography at the Oxford Internet Institute, told me. Graham and his colleagues have been conducting an extensive study of the digital economy, interviewing hundreds of digital workers and analyzing data about tens of thousands of projects. They found that most buyers are located in high-income countries like the United States, and most sellers are in countries such as India, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

I know I said things were looking good, and then just listed a few gloomy statistics, but that's because it set the table for this great story about the grassroots campaign that helped repeal the awful "right to work" law in Missouri.

On August 18, 2017—just 10 days before the right-to-work law was set to go into effect—labor turned in 310,567 signatures, three times the number required to place the referendum on this year’s ballot. In a partisan move, legislative Republicans moved the vote up from November to the August 7 primary, hoping to suppress turnout. But their maneuver didn’t work. An astounding 67 percent of voters rejected right to work. Labor’s win in Missouri defies current wisdom about the decline of unions. We won with an even greater percentage of no votes than in the celebrated 1978 defeat of right to work in Missouri—despite the fact that union density has fallen by two-thirds since then. Amazingly, even if none of Missouri’s quarter-million union members had voted, right to work would still have been defeated. Given the number of ballots cast in the Republican primary, at least a third of the no votes must have come from Republicans.

The credit goes to grassroots organizing, led by labor unions and groups like Rise Up. They knocked doors, made calls, texted, and rallied the public in ways we have not seen in a long time in Missouri. It goes to show that workers issues can appeal to the other side of the aisle — Missouri has a right-wing governor and Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill is in a neck-and-neck race to keep her seat.

We’re actually seeing workers issues appealing to everyone this year. Citizen activists in Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, and Montana — all very red states — have put Medicaid expansion on the ballot this November, while voters in Arkansas and Michigan will vote on minimum wage increases.

Meanwhile, we saw teachers in red states rise up against draconian education cuts, taking to the streets with overwhelming bipartisan citizen support. In fact, as we saw in Oklahoma, even Republican voters are willing to punish lawmakers who vote against teacher raises and school funding.

This should deliver a message to Democrats: Stand with labor. Stand with workers. Fight their fights, because they are increasingly becoming everybody’s fights. Saying you want to help people get or keep healthcare, get a raise, keep their job, get out from under crushing debt — those messages cut through the political bullshit noise and win you votes. And more importantly, following through on it is doing what voters put you in office to do.

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