George Bailey contemplates suicide in a scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” An angel then grants him a look at what the world would have been like if he’d never been born.
“Why are you so plussed up about New York City’s construction unions?” one emailer recently wrote to us. Below is what we wrote back.
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Thanks for your question. It’s the holidays so we’re responding through the lens of the timeless movie favorite, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There are some surprisingly apt comparisons between that Frank Capra classic and the question you posed. In case you don’t know this movie here’s a recap.
George Bailey is a family man who owns a small building and loan that supports local families and businesses. He’s known and loved in his small town, Bedford Falls, NY. Across town a large bank is run by the money-grubbing raider Henry Potter. Potter uses nefarious means to put Bailey’s company on the brink of bankruptcy and Bailey under threat of jail. This injustice causes Bailey to question everything he’s spent his good life building.
On Christmas Eve Bailey finds a bridge over a raging river and intends to throw his life away. But an angel named Clarence, posing as an indigent person, intercedes and jumps in the river first. Bailey immediately abandons his ideas of suicide and jumps in to save the floundering Clarence. In the aftermath of his heroism, when Bailey’s thoughts return to his troubles, he mutters, “I wish I’d never been born.” Clarence grants Bailey that wish and the rest of the movie reveals what life in Bedford Falls would have been like if George Bailey never was.
We quickly discover that Bedford Falls without George is a very bleak place.
Now let us show you an America where unions never existed. What you’ll see is a place that is equally bleak and probably more frightening than what became of Potterville (which is what Bedford Falls is renamed after Henry Potter got his claws on the town’s future). It’s not hard to imagine what our everyday would be like if workers had not organized and fought back against money-thirsty management to achieve some basic human rights for us all. America before the rise of unions shows that dark reality and demonstrates that management will not grant us rights without a fight. America without unions means:
An America where children work on the assembly line
Imagine working side-by-side with a child on a job that demands physical endurance and sharp attention. This was the norm before unions. Impoverished people often viewed the birth of a child as an opportunity to add a new wage earner to the family, even though those wages were certainly meager. Many American children died in worksite accidents doing jobs they were both physically and mentally unready to do.
Workers at the first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment.” States across the country adopted similar recommendations leading to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.
However today as we write this, groups are vying in Right-to-Work states to weaken the child labor laws and allow businesses to start putting children back in the adult labor force.
We’re so “plussed up” about New York City’s construction unions because life in Bedford Falls is much better than life in Potterville.
An America with no overtime, no weekends, no assurances
In 1870 the average American workweek was 61 hours. Workers had no protections against being fired unjustly, no recourse against being kept at work for exceedingly long stretches, and no guarantee of recovery time. Then labor unions organized massive strikes to demand shorter workweeks. By 1937 unions created the political momentum to help pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which added more leisure time to workers' lives.
Meanwhile today, echoing the raw capitalistic harshness of Henry Potter, modern business billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos whine about “lazy” employees not spending more time at work and fight to squelch the most basic of human needs on the job, like meal and bathroom breaks. Now Musk has a role in our government.
An America with no employer-supplemented health coverage
It was once believed that for the laborer your lot was to work until the very end of your life. If you were “lucky,” according to an industrial age summary by the Department of Labor, you had numerous children who could be sent to work and thereby relieve your burden of bread-winning and allow you some rest at the end of your average 44-year life.
The rise of unions in the 1930’s and 1940’s led to the first great expansion of health care for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers. In 1942, the US set up a National War Labor Board, which allowed employers to offer “fringe benefits — notably, health insurance.” By 1950, two-thirds of all companies offered health insurance of one kind or another.
An America where worker quality of life exists at the whim of the people who employ them
Here are just a few of the other important accomplishments we now enjoy because unions fought and won them for us. The Family And Medical Leave Act, higher average wages, better workplace and lifestyle benefits, safer workplaces, a voice on the job.
A look at the Industrial Revolution shows how the power of the economy and the work place was squarely in the hands of business management. Many workers slaved long days with no time off and underpaid child labor was common in burgeoning factories. Half the nation's income went to the 10% at the top.
That changed when workers organized and flexed their power in negotiations with ownership. From 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, to 1980, the middle class enjoyed a fairer share of the income pie. America, like Bedford Falls, experienced a golden age of shared effort, productivity and reward.
But a slow chipping away at union power by state and federal governments through the passing of certain laws, has helped to diminish union influence, and membership is eroding. It's no coincidence that stark income disparity has returned. Yes, gone are the 16-hour days, but many workers must carry two or three jobs to make ends meet. Many others work without medical or other benefits once enjoyed as standard. And now we have Project 2025 and all its promises of austerity and the cutting of worker rights.
This is why we’re so “plussed up” about New York City’s construction unions. This is why you should be too. Because life in Bedford Falls is much better than life in Potterville.
Happy Holidays from Union-Built Matters
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