The successful union vote at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, despite the company illegally threatening employees with loss of benefits and withholding wages if they voted to unionize, was big news.
Throughout our lives, the nature of work has evolved. Comparing the US in 1920 to 2020 provides some interesting contrasts as people leave the farm and move to more urban areas. (How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen gay Paree?)
The 1920s is the decade when America's economy grew 42%. Mass production spread new consumer goods into every household. The modern auto and airline industries were born. The U.S. victory in World War I gave the country its first experience of being a global power. Soldiers returning home from Europe brought with them a new perspective, energy, and skills. Everyone became an investor thanks to easy access to credit. That hidden weakness helped cause the Great Depression.
...
Farming declined from 18% to 12.4% of the economy. Taxes per acre rose 40%, while farm income fell 21%. At the same time, new inventions sent the manufacturing of consumer goods soaring. https://www.thebalance.com/roaring-twenties-4060511
As people moved, so did their employment options and it hasn't stopped, nor has inequality...in fact it is as high as ever. Stagnant wages for most, alongside soaring profits and wages for those at the top, will continue to mean that the 0.1 to 1 percent accumulate more and more income and wealth.
We are only weeks away from the presidential primaries, and the left wing of the party has never been so active, so you might think the Democratic Party leadership would take this moment to throw a bone to the critical labor union membership.
Well, think again!
When the Democratic Party has a debate in Detroit, of all cities, you might think that labor unions would be mentioned. Right?
But CNN was hosting these debates, and CNN sucks.
Last year the West Virginia school teachers inspired teacher strikes all over the country. This week the Republicans retaliated.
I am a pilgrim far from home,
A wanderer like Mars,
And thought my wanderings ne’er should come,
So fixed behind the bars!
Last week I posted this essay about how unhappy the AFL-CIO is about being taken for granted by the Democratic Party for decades.
Progressives around the country have been shaking up the Democratic Party and most Democratic voters support them.
While progressives are correctly focused on reforming the broken, dysfuctional, and out-of-touch Democratic Party establishment, it's important to take a step back and realize that Hillary would never have defeated Bernie in the primaries if not for so-called progressive organizations.
On November 2, 1920, something happened that had never happened before in history and is never likely to happen again: a federal prisoner received nearly 1 million write-in votes for president, including 22% of the New York vote.
This wasn't just any prisoner. This was a legendary union leader who was now a political prisoner.
This was Eugene Debs.
