Yes, America Is Rigged Against Workers
No other industrial country treats its working class so badly. And thereâs one big reason for that.
The United States is the only advanced industrial nation that doesnât have national laws guaranteeing paid maternity leave. It is also the only advanced economy that doesnât guarantee workers any vacation, paid or unpaid, and the only highly developed country (other than South Korea) that doesnât guarantee paid sick days. In contrast, the European Unionâs 28 nations guarantee workers at least four weeksâ paid vacation.
Among the three dozen industrial countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has the lowest minimum wage as a percentage of the median wage â just 34 percent of the typical wage, compared with 62 percent in France and 54 percent in Britain. It also has the second-highest percentage of low-wage workers among that group, exceeded only by Latvia.
All this means the United States suffers from what I call âanti-worker exceptionalism.â
Academics debate why American workers are in many ways worse off than their counterparts elsewhere, but there is overriding agreement on one reason: Labor unions are weaker in the United States than in other industrial nations. Just one in 16 private-sector American workers is in a union, largely because corporations are so adept and aggressive at beating back unionization. In no other industrial nation do corporations fight so hard to keep out unions.
The consequences are enormous, not only for wages and income inequality, but also for our politics and policy-making and for the many Americans who are mistreated at work.
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To be sure, unions have their flaws, from corruption to their history of racial and sex discrimination. Still, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson write of an important, unappreciated feature of unions in âWinner-Take-All Politicsâ: âWhile there are many âprogressiveâ groups in the American universe of organized interests, labor is the only major one focused on the broad economic concerns of those with modest incomes.â
As workersâ power has waned, many corporations have adopted practices that were far rarer â if not unheard-of â decades ago: hiring hordes of unpaid interns, expecting workers to toil 60 or 70 hours a week, prohibiting employees from suing and instead forcing them into arbitration (which usually favors employers), and hamstringing employeesâ mobility by making them sign non-compete clauses.
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Americaâs workers have for decades been losing out: year after year of wage stagnation, increased insecurity on the job, waves of downsizing and offshoring, and laborâs share of national income declining to its lowest level in seven decades.
Numerous studies have found that an important cause of Americaâs soaring income inequality is the decline of labor unions â and the concomitant decline in workersâ ability to extract more of the profit and prosperity from the corporations they work for. The only time during the past century when income inequality narrowed substantially was the 1940s through 1970s, when unions were at their peak of power and prominence.
Many Americans are understandably frustrated. Thatâs one reason the percentage who say they want to join a union has risen markedly. According to a 2018 M.I.T. study, 46 percent of nonunion workers say they would like to be in a union, up from 32 percent in 1995. Nonetheless, just 10.5 percent of all American workers, and only 6.4 percent of private-sector workers, are in unions.
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But this desire to unionize faces some daunting challenges. In many corporations, the mentality is that any supervisor, whether a factory manager or retail manager, who fails to keep out a union is an utter failure. That means managers fight hard to quash unions. One study found that 57 percent of employers threatened to close operations when workers sought to unionize, while 47 percent threatened to cut wages or benefits and 34 percent fired union supporters during unionization drives.
Corporate executivesâ frequent failure to listen to workersâ concerns â along with the intimidation of employees â can have deadly results. On April 5, 2010, a coal dust explosion killed 29 miners at Massey Energyâs Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. A federal investigation found that the mineâs ventilation system was inadequate and that explosive gases were allowed to build up. Workers at the nonunion mine knew about these dangers. âNo one felt they could go to management and express their fears,â Stanley Stewart, an Upper Big Branch miner, told a congressional committee. âWe knew weâd be marked men and the management would look for ways to fire us.â
The diminished power of unions and workers has skewed American politics, helping give billionaires and corporations inordinate sway over Americaâs politics and policymaking. In the 2015-16 election cycle, business outspent labor $3.4 billion to $213 million, a ratio of 16 to 1, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. All of the nationâs unions, taken together, spend about $48 million a year for lobbying in Washington, while corporate America spends $3 billion. Little wonder that many lawmakers seem vastly more interested in cutting taxes on corporations than in raising the minimum wage.
There were undoubtedly many reasons for Donald Trumpâs 2016 victory, but a key one was that many Americans seemed to view him as a protest candidate, promising to shake up âthe systemâ and âdrain the swamp.â Many voters embraced Mr. Trump because they believed his statements that the system is rigged â and in many ways it is. When it comes to workersâ power in the workplace and in politics, the pendulum has swung far toward corporations.
Reversing that wonât be easy, but it is vital we do so. There are myriad proposals to restore some balance, from having workers elect representatives to corporate boards to making it easier for workers to unionize to expanding public financing of political campaigns to prevent wealthy and corporate donors from often dominating.
Americaâs workers wonât stop thinking the system is rigged until they feel they have an effective voice in the workplace and in policymaking so that they can share in more of the economyâs prosperity to help improve their â and their loved onesâ â lives.
This Piece Originally Appeared in www.nytimes.com
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