America: The World’s Most Successful Union
The right to organize is at the very root of our nation's founding. Americans enjoy freedom as a result of it.
This Fourth of July week, more than any in recent memory, we have cause to celebrate the idea, existence, and success of unions. After all, America is the world’s greatest example of a successful union, in which many disparate parties coalesced around a common goal.
And that goal was, and still is, independence from the tyranny of the powerful over the everyman. It’s a struggle that remains relevant today in places like Amazon, Starbucks, and in the auto industry, where wealthy corporations who have squeezed maximum profit from their workers still refuse to negotiate fairly with the people who are responsible for their wealth.
And it’s a struggle that remains relevant today in New York’s construction industry, where non-unionized contractors, fueled by wealthy and powerful developers, bend the rules and harm working people in order to line their pockets.
But like the rebel army that founded this nation, unions refuse to quit the fight for independence. So it’s helpful if we try to define what that word means for workers.
A Fair Marketplace
America hates a cheater. But in business, cheaters often win the day because there’s no proper referee ensuring that everyone is playing by the same rules. In New York construction, those cheaters are the non-union contractors who lower project bids by skirting established safety rules, skimping on materials, overworking and underpaying their staffs, and defrauding on insurance and taxes.
In New York, union contractors provide the fairest marketplace by ensuring a living wage for their workers and that all safety rules are respected. In this way, unions also they provide the best, most reliable work.
Unions protect workers by requiring bosses to follow the rules, including safety standards, and by providing a representative to push back with strength when the bosses break these rules. Powerful representation is the main reason bosses often despise unions.
Self-determination
In imbalanced relationships, the weak lack proper agency to affect their self-determination. The powerful often abuse this imbalance for their own gain, and the results can be tragic. This imbalance explains how non-union bosses sent Carlos Moncayo, against his wishes, into a construction pit with unrestrained earthen walls where he was then buried alive. It explains how non-union bosses sent a group of workers up the side of a building on an open platform lifted by a crane when Juan Chonillo slipped and fell 27 stories to his death. Stories like this go on forever, and they only happen on non-union construction sites.
Unions protect workers by requiring bosses to follow the rules, including safety standards, and by providing a representative to push back with strength when the bosses break these rules. Powerful representation is the main reason bosses often despise unions.
Collectivization
The freedom to choose to join a group for your own benefit is surprisingly fleeting in the US today. As many as 26 states have Right to Work laws which aim to defang unions of all their strength. The end result is that unions are pretty much illegal in these states.
RTW is a policy that benefits the wealthy business class and harms the working class. A 2023 Oxfam study rates the best and worst states to work in. Virtually all the lowest ranked states have proudly enacted RTW laws. All the best states to work in, where workers have better pay, better work/life balance, better benefits, and even a linger lifespan, all welcome and thrive with worker unions.
And despite the jingoistic language that RTW proponents wrap themselves in, the fact is that RTW unAmerican. Banning people from collectivizing deprives us of the right that actually founded the country we live in.
America is a Union
This week, as we appreciate what is great about America, we should remember the hard important successes that worker unions have brought to us all. After all, America is the worlds largest and most successful union.
We are stronger together. Solidarity forever!
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