History is clear on this point: the excesses and power imbalances inherent in capitalist economies must be rebalanced by a much larger labor movement. And we can get there!
I'm no economist, but as a retired public school teacher in a state (Texas) with "right to work" law, we were forbidden from striking. Our labor unions lobbied for better pay and conditions, healthcare, but without any real power, other than political. But now our state, once moderate Democrat, has now turned into libertarianism and Trumpism. My point is that Mr. Bernstein is correct in his analysis (and as economic architect of Joe Biden's administration was seeking to correct union policy), but this is a two-edged sword: in order to grow unions, we must regain political power, something that will
be hard to do. Not impossible, but difficult. Why don't voters and elected officials pay attention to the lessons of history? Why did D's allow Reaganism to upend its pact with labor? All hard questions. D's must divorce themselves from corporatism and embrace a true populist movement, a.k.a. Bernie Sanders.
David - and Jared - I have conceptually supported organized labor and particularly the right of collective bargaining. But it was my experience with our education system and teachers’ union that weakened that support. Specifically, that primary school teachers had “tenure” after two years and became virtually fire-proof. So when my child had a terrible teacher, the only thing the district could do was shuffle her to a different classroom.
I understand the protections workers need and deserve, but I can’t abide the bad teacher with lifetime job security.
I don’t know the solution here, ut my child- everyone’s child - deserve a teacher not burned out and dedicated to the job. The union needs to solve this.
Two things can be and are, imho, true. One, there are unions that need to be better in ways you describe, and two, the labor movement's role in rebalancing, as per the thesis of my post, is essential.
When I have talked to conservatives about funding public education, their objection is those funds go to the union. So, for the labor movement to rebalance, which I am all for, the center-right needs to see those improvements first.
I'm not sure unions can solve problems like that. The reasons why there are bad teachers in certain schools are usually complex. Just firing them all won't solve the problem, we need to get to the very root cause of it. And that is probably a combination of factors such as teacher training, teacher salary, school funding, etc.
I think they can, and they must. Public sector unions have lost support because 1) the private sector is NOT unionized - they do not have pensions like the public sector; and 2) situations like I’ve described.
Unions exist to benefit their members. Teachers have told me directly that the bad teachers make their jobs harder. But they are not pushing the union to eliminate these egregious job security provisions. So they lose supporters who feel “if I did my job that poorly, I wouldn’t have it.”
For organized labor to lead from below, they need broad popular support. They need some victories as well. If Wal Mart and Amazon labor would unionize, I think the majority of the customer base would support them even if the companies raised prices a buck or two across every item they sold.
Schools often use unions as an excuse. I used to live in a strong union state. When parents would complain about teachers the principals would say the unions prevented them from firing teachers. I had a close friend who was both a teacher and parent in that school system and knew the rules well. She would always point out that bad teachers could be fired, the administration just had to follow a process and document it. That process included things warning the teacher and having an intervention to address the problem — classroom management classes for example. If the process did not work the teachers could be fired.
A few years later my friend became the assistant superintendent. Her boss thought like she did. Within the first couple of years they had gotten rid of those teachers parents had been complaining about for years.
No tenure at the public school level here. I don't think tenure is necessarily a good idea. Performance plus feedback from students/parents should keep one's job going. I don't know the history of tenure, but my guess is it was something of an over-reaction to the ability of administrators to fire teachers to keep them from tying up too much salary/benefits. So it shouldn't be too easy to fire a person (some protections), but also performance-based. This would apply to any field. And unions are only as good as their leadership. Again, as Mr. Bernstein suggests, balance. GOP/Reaganism did a good job of vilifying unions, but for all their flaws, they did much good for workers, especially in terms of leveling inequality. Read what work was like in the 19th century (Gilded Age 1, we're now in Gilded Age 2) before unions gained power. Horrific conditions, and many died. It literally took a mob appearing on the steps of the US Capitol during the Hoover admin to gain the attention of government. Then we had FDR. FDR acted for good, out of real fear of workers.
In the 1980's we were told by Reaganites, "Unions have outlived their purpose, Workers have gained many rights and victories, but to the detriment of productivity and profit. We're better off economically without them". Now we've been without their real political influnce for 40+ years. Where have nearly all of the economic profits gone? What has happened to workers' basic rights, conditions, welfare? Nearly every good thing from globalism and free trade has gone to the wealthy--the very top 1%. So it is time for a new labor movement. Trump has convinced MAGAs that reform will happen from the top down (with him making changes, which again really only benefit him and the super wealthy oligarchy). The reality is that ONLY a movement from the bottom up (as Biden told us) will benefit the majority.
With 200,000 more votes in the blue wall swing states, Harris would have been president. Without the post-pandemic global inflation, Democrats might easily have won the 2024 elections. And then there is the fact that the power of the GOP is entirely based on lies, so on quicksand.
So what makes you believe that it would be hard to regain political power?
As to why Democrats worked together with Reagan: it's because they're democrats first. That means: they believe in the democratic process. Reagan won ALL states except one (the home state of the Democratic nominee). Everyone was speaking his language. When the people vote so massively for the opposite of what you yourself stand for, you compromise with those who won the election. That's what democracy is all about...
I am a retired public school teacher. Of course, I had to join the union to get the job. I found the union made it too difficult to fire ineffective teachers; those teachers affected student achievement which was my primary goal as a teacher. That is not the goal of the union.
Also, politicians are in the hands of public employee unions, both teachers and law enforcement, which also makes it hard to fire bad cops. For these reasons, I am opposed to public employee unions' funds going to support political candidates.
See my post above. A good adminstration will go through the process required for firing truly bad teachers who can’t be helped by further training in classroom management or their subject matter.
Also problem happens in many non-union workplaces. I have worked in two non-union situations where the admin would not fire incompetent or lazy employees.
My spouse had the same experience when he worked for management in a major manufacturing company. At his level there was no union protection yet bosses rarely fired clearly bad employees. However, upper management had no problem ordering managers to fire people once they hit the age of fifty, though. It was blatant age discrimination but no one sued because people had to sign an agreement to not sue in order to get their compensation package. A union would have protected them from that .
Let's add that we'll need a Retirees Union - not the useless, astroturf AARP.
Seniors will need to get organized for purely selfish reasons when the Trump gang attack their livelihoods and lives. For example, as they steal Social Security, by falsifying the CPI for cost of living adjustments as inflation worsens. And when they deny vaccines for the elderly. (Apparently they already have done this in half the country, as CVS and Walgreens are refusing to administer the new vaccine, for fear of RFK Jr madness.) And as they impose unreasonable limits on Medicare treatments. And when nursing homes become even less affordable with the deportation of undocumented workers. And on and on.
This essay articulates many of the things I have been unclearly thinking for some time, so thank you for that. I think that one more factor may have been the decline in manufacturing jobs: people haven't tended to take the idea of unionizing service and office jobs as seriously as manufacturing unions, even though some service and office jobs are unionized.
The preamble to the US constitution begins ""We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...". Large corporations and very wealthy people have a great deal of power; states have a great deal of power. The remaining people need offsetting power or there can never be a "more perfect union". If unions can no longer supply enough offsetting power, the Federal government is the only remaining source large enough to do so. Currently it's failing badly.
Agree 100% but for years I've noticed that when white commentators talking about "the working class," they're pretty clearly referring to the *white* working class, and they don't seem to have "pink-collar" workers (who are mostly female and often of color) in mind either. In making a beeline for Reagan in 1980, many white workers, male and female, chose racial solidarity over worker solidarity -- with predictably disastrous results. I'd like to believe that progress has been made since then, but support for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024 makes me wonder. I want to know more about this, but I'm not sure where to look.
Until at least January 2029, the federal government will be full on anti-union. Even if a pro-union Democrat like Biden is elected in 2028, labor will be an insufficient counter-veiling force against generations of the bipartisan erosion of labor rights. The union movement of the early 20th century was driven by the fight between Capitalism and Communism and in reaction to the concentrated wealth of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. Now, the only likely sufficient counter-veiling force is government. Government can institute universal health care, paid family leave, a living wage, make employers pay benefits on a prorated basis for part-time employees, (like the EU). free child care, eliminate the cap on wages subject to payroll taxes, and free college or trade education. In short, all the kinds of things that labor accomplished in the 20th century. Sure, a stronger labor movement will help, but labor is a necessary but insufficient source of fundamental reform. Dreaming that unions will fix our problems is as delusional as thinking that Trump will abide by the rule of law.
The US economy no longer affords widespread prosperity, and it hasn't since the 60s. That is the reform that is needed, an economy that does that. In 2015, Harvard B-School professors discussed "restoring shared prosperity." They said, "The foundation of an economy with shared prosperity is a STRONG COMMONS - a set of communal assets and institutions that an economy and companies rely on to be productive . . . an educated work force, pools of skilled labor in areas important to its business, vibrant networks of suppliers, strong physical infrastructure, a core of basic research that can be commercialized, and so on" (https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/challenge-of-shared-prosperity.pdf).
How to get there? 1. Slow down globalization and technological change. 2. Redistribute the gains (yes, that means a more progressive tax system, including higher tax rates on higher levels of income). 3. Boost overall economic growth. 4. Address the political paralysis (not much offered here). 5. Reinvest in the commons.
I think focusing on the nation's strong commons is a more inclusive strategy for reforming the economy than focusing on the labor sector.
Another thought, from historian Gary Gerstle, author of "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era." Now that the Neoliberal order has ended (the 2008 Crash), he sees a new political economy taking shape: "For the economic realm to prosper, state involvement is needed at a level that was deemed unacceptable during the neoliberal era. There is a growing recognition that states must intervene in markets to address questions of economic security, opportunity, and welfare" (https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Analytical-Series/cafe-econ-a-new-political-order-emerges).
Reading Robert Reich's Coming Up Short right now which tells his tale of pushing economic populism for decades with limited success from Democrats. The labor movement got government to make real change but I just don't see how labor power can rise to the levels needed to be the driver of change in America. It has to be the government. I am currently working on a book about Wicked Good Government: Dismantling Our Greed Economy that focuses on completely revising our personal income tax system to eliminate corporate welfare and use that money as efficiently as possible by bolstering current programs or creating new ones. Globalization and technological change should help, not hurt the general welfare if managed correctly, so no need to slow that down. Thanks for the links!
Yes. Both Clinton and Obama pivoted to deficit reduction and were either complicit in deregulating Wall Street, Clinton, or too easy on Wall Street, Obama. Both listened too much to Robert Rubin instead of Robert Reich, which was labeled the battle of the Bobs.
Got it. Both Admins were operating under Neoliberalism.
Speaking of which, what did you think of Gary Gerstle saying a new political economy is taking shape, one where "states must intervene in markets to address questions of economic security, opportunity, and welfare." That's Reich's economic populism, yes?
Since 1981 we have systematically reduced the scope and power of unions in the USA - and at the same time we have witnessed the secular decline of the middle class ( with its
associated lack of purchasing power) . It didn’t happen quietly -
we put both family members to work, then one got a second job on top of the first - just to claim middle
class status. When that failed , we resorted to unwise credit card debt .
Somehow “ Greed is Good “
came into mainstream fashion- or at
least praying to the god of maximizing profits above all else
( including common decency) .
Now , instead of an FDR like course correction- I ( gasp) foresee more of a declaration of martial law and
the rise of Big Brother because he alone is the perfect solution uh huh .
I think it's too easy to blame Democrats here (not that this article blames them, but many other people do). In a democracy, it's the job of politicians to represent their constituents. So when Reagan and Thatcher won the elections (and Reagan by a real landslide... only the state of the Democratic candidate voted for him...), based on a neoliberal (read: ultra-capitalist) agenda hidden under soaring rhetoric, the tone was set. Now, Democrats would HAVE to talk the same language if they wanted to win elections again.
Today, the problem is even worse. GOP voters have been put in an "alternative facts" bubble by neoliberal, neocon, and then neofascist GOP leaders. So now, union leaders have to face the fact that part of their own members believe all the GOP lies and therefore WANT them to endorse GOP politicians.
The only solution, IMHO, is to find a way to prove to them how utterly false the entire universe they came to believe in by now actually is.
Fwiw, I do believe that the vote for Reagan in both 1980 and 1984 was driven more by racism and sexism (esp. anti-Roe v. Wade) than by neoliberal economic considerations. Whether non-rich white people have learned anything from that and subsequent decades I don't know. I tend to see Trump II as our hitting bottom. Will it be enough to make us collectively deal with reality? I don't know. Watch this space.
Agree about the vote for Reagan, Susanna. "Racism has always lurked in the modern GOP’s DNA, from Goldwater’s opposition to desegregation to Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens and states’ rights rhetoric" (Stuart Stevens, author of "It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump").
Nice Labour Day post. But labour and the left must come to terms with the stagflation crisis of the 1970s which opened the door for Reagan and Thatcher, and killed the social democratic alternative. Eg Mitterrand. A democratic socialist alternative existed based on the Keynes of the 1930s… managed trade, capital controls, socialization of investment, the euthanasia of the rentier, a strong labour movement. Bastard Keynesianism won the day, but the left Keynesian agenda is still a relevant option.
Kudos, hitting the proverbial nail on the head … I’m teacher, albeit teaching through my Substack (EdintheApple) and I was a staffer for my union. NYS has strong public employee union laws (Public Employees Relations Board) and every unit with in the state
has a local unit with a negotiated collective bargaining agreement, we need the same in the private sector.
Unions are active in local politics, from door knocking to phone banks to in-person visits to elected. I’m proud of my national union leadership, Randi Weingarten, unions must be built from the bottom up, hopefully, as in Europe, have a major voice in policy creation.. and, we have far better songs than management 😉
On March 16, 2026, for the first time since the 1985 strike against Hormel[1] in Austin, Minnesota, workers walked out at a U.S. meatpacking plant, this time in Greeley, Colorado, just north of Denver.
On February 4 this year, after eight months of negotiations with JBS Swift, the members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 voted “yes” to authorize a strike.
The local was a hold-out following national negotiations by the UFCW with JBS, which signed a contract with 10 other locals in May 2025. But Local 7 said the wage package offered was inadequate given inflation, on-the-job hazards that were not addressed, and company harassment and intimidation of employees.
Beautifully written and great data thank you. Perhaps the American unions can learn from the scandinavian ones. The NYT some time ago ran an article on union movements across the world. US unions are unusual in that 1) they tend to bargain company by company, rather than sector by sector 2) they place more priority on job security over wages. This leads them to focus on "protecting their weakest-performing members" as they NYT put it. A number of comments were about that I believe.
There is far from enough pressure from below. And even if there is, there’s no opposition party that is willing to respond positively — with action, I mean, as opposed to empty talk as is the trade mark of the post-Clinton Ds.
Implying that there’s a party willing to restrain capitalists to any meaningful degree is (to put it politely) dishonest.
Theoretically, it’s possible to reform the Ds. But the odds are terrible.
Institutions like the NLRB existed to stabilize the economy against the shocks of workers revolts, much as democracy stabilized the transfer of power against previous methods of disposing of undesired leaders. The powers that be seem to think that these institutions were only in place to protect *us* from *them,* and so they've dropped their shields.
And there's what the guru of the "free market above all" capitalists had to say about the relationship between owners and workers
" What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and, one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen, who sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind, combine, of their own accord, to raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions, sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters, upon these occasions, are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the superior steadiness of the masters, partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under of submitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing but the punishment or ruin of the ringleaders.
But though, in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage, there is, however, a certain rate, below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour. "
and later in that book & chapter:
"Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes to regulate wages in particular trades, and in particular places. Thus the 8th of George III. prohibits, under heavy penalties, all master tailors in London, and five miles round it, from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than two shillings and sevenpence halfpenny a-day, except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in money, and not in goods, is quite just and equitable. It imposes no real hardship upon the masters. It only obliges them to pay that value in money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in goods. This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III. is in favour of the masters. When masters combine together, in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage, under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to accept of a certain wage, under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very severely; and, if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same manner. But the 8th of George III. enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt to establish by such combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the same footing with an ordinary workman, seems perfectly well founded. "
Sounds like he's saying that the only strength workers have is the ability to withhold their labor in order to gain bargaining strength. And the owners will conspire together with the government to make laws preventing the workers from banding together (forming unions). Otherwise, the owners can hold out longer than the individual workers in any pay dispute. And that the owners are more likely to have the ear of the government and get laws in their favor, and be able to enforce them.
I'm no economist, but as a retired public school teacher in a state (Texas) with "right to work" law, we were forbidden from striking. Our labor unions lobbied for better pay and conditions, healthcare, but without any real power, other than political. But now our state, once moderate Democrat, has now turned into libertarianism and Trumpism. My point is that Mr. Bernstein is correct in his analysis (and as economic architect of Joe Biden's administration was seeking to correct union policy), but this is a two-edged sword: in order to grow unions, we must regain political power, something that will
be hard to do. Not impossible, but difficult. Why don't voters and elected officials pay attention to the lessons of history? Why did D's allow Reaganism to upend its pact with labor? All hard questions. D's must divorce themselves from corporatism and embrace a true populist movement, a.k.a. Bernie Sanders.
David - and Jared - I have conceptually supported organized labor and particularly the right of collective bargaining. But it was my experience with our education system and teachers’ union that weakened that support. Specifically, that primary school teachers had “tenure” after two years and became virtually fire-proof. So when my child had a terrible teacher, the only thing the district could do was shuffle her to a different classroom.
I understand the protections workers need and deserve, but I can’t abide the bad teacher with lifetime job security.
I don’t know the solution here, ut my child- everyone’s child - deserve a teacher not burned out and dedicated to the job. The union needs to solve this.
Two things can be and are, imho, true. One, there are unions that need to be better in ways you describe, and two, the labor movement's role in rebalancing, as per the thesis of my post, is essential.
When I have talked to conservatives about funding public education, their objection is those funds go to the union. So, for the labor movement to rebalance, which I am all for, the center-right needs to see those improvements first.
I'm not sure unions can solve problems like that. The reasons why there are bad teachers in certain schools are usually complex. Just firing them all won't solve the problem, we need to get to the very root cause of it. And that is probably a combination of factors such as teacher training, teacher salary, school funding, etc.
I think they can, and they must. Public sector unions have lost support because 1) the private sector is NOT unionized - they do not have pensions like the public sector; and 2) situations like I’ve described.
Unions exist to benefit their members. Teachers have told me directly that the bad teachers make their jobs harder. But they are not pushing the union to eliminate these egregious job security provisions. So they lose supporters who feel “if I did my job that poorly, I wouldn’t have it.”
For organized labor to lead from below, they need broad popular support. They need some victories as well. If Wal Mart and Amazon labor would unionize, I think the majority of the customer base would support them even if the companies raised prices a buck or two across every item they sold.
Schools often use unions as an excuse. I used to live in a strong union state. When parents would complain about teachers the principals would say the unions prevented them from firing teachers. I had a close friend who was both a teacher and parent in that school system and knew the rules well. She would always point out that bad teachers could be fired, the administration just had to follow a process and document it. That process included things warning the teacher and having an intervention to address the problem — classroom management classes for example. If the process did not work the teachers could be fired.
A few years later my friend became the assistant superintendent. Her boss thought like she did. Within the first couple of years they had gotten rid of those teachers parents had been complaining about for years.
No tenure at the public school level here. I don't think tenure is necessarily a good idea. Performance plus feedback from students/parents should keep one's job going. I don't know the history of tenure, but my guess is it was something of an over-reaction to the ability of administrators to fire teachers to keep them from tying up too much salary/benefits. So it shouldn't be too easy to fire a person (some protections), but also performance-based. This would apply to any field. And unions are only as good as their leadership. Again, as Mr. Bernstein suggests, balance. GOP/Reaganism did a good job of vilifying unions, but for all their flaws, they did much good for workers, especially in terms of leveling inequality. Read what work was like in the 19th century (Gilded Age 1, we're now in Gilded Age 2) before unions gained power. Horrific conditions, and many died. It literally took a mob appearing on the steps of the US Capitol during the Hoover admin to gain the attention of government. Then we had FDR. FDR acted for good, out of real fear of workers.
In the 1980's we were told by Reaganites, "Unions have outlived their purpose, Workers have gained many rights and victories, but to the detriment of productivity and profit. We're better off economically without them". Now we've been without their real political influnce for 40+ years. Where have nearly all of the economic profits gone? What has happened to workers' basic rights, conditions, welfare? Nearly every good thing from globalism and free trade has gone to the wealthy--the very top 1%. So it is time for a new labor movement. Trump has convinced MAGAs that reform will happen from the top down (with him making changes, which again really only benefit him and the super wealthy oligarchy). The reality is that ONLY a movement from the bottom up (as Biden told us) will benefit the majority.
Thx for the Reagan quote, "We're better off economically without them." As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, "What do you mean "we", white man?"
Tenure means you can’t be fired without a process being followed. See my post above.
Same here, Frank. Why does a Kindergarten teacher need tenure???
With 200,000 more votes in the blue wall swing states, Harris would have been president. Without the post-pandemic global inflation, Democrats might easily have won the 2024 elections. And then there is the fact that the power of the GOP is entirely based on lies, so on quicksand.
So what makes you believe that it would be hard to regain political power?
As to why Democrats worked together with Reagan: it's because they're democrats first. That means: they believe in the democratic process. Reagan won ALL states except one (the home state of the Democratic nominee). Everyone was speaking his language. When the people vote so massively for the opposite of what you yourself stand for, you compromise with those who won the election. That's what democracy is all about...
I am a retired public school teacher. Of course, I had to join the union to get the job. I found the union made it too difficult to fire ineffective teachers; those teachers affected student achievement which was my primary goal as a teacher. That is not the goal of the union.
Also, politicians are in the hands of public employee unions, both teachers and law enforcement, which also makes it hard to fire bad cops. For these reasons, I am opposed to public employee unions' funds going to support political candidates.
What are your thoughts on that?
See my post above. A good adminstration will go through the process required for firing truly bad teachers who can’t be helped by further training in classroom management or their subject matter.
Also problem happens in many non-union workplaces. I have worked in two non-union situations where the admin would not fire incompetent or lazy employees.
My spouse had the same experience when he worked for management in a major manufacturing company. At his level there was no union protection yet bosses rarely fired clearly bad employees. However, upper management had no problem ordering managers to fire people once they hit the age of fifty, though. It was blatant age discrimination but no one sued because people had to sign an agreement to not sue in order to get their compensation package. A union would have protected them from that .
Let's add that we'll need a Retirees Union - not the useless, astroturf AARP.
Seniors will need to get organized for purely selfish reasons when the Trump gang attack their livelihoods and lives. For example, as they steal Social Security, by falsifying the CPI for cost of living adjustments as inflation worsens. And when they deny vaccines for the elderly. (Apparently they already have done this in half the country, as CVS and Walgreens are refusing to administer the new vaccine, for fear of RFK Jr madness.) And as they impose unreasonable limits on Medicare treatments. And when nursing homes become even less affordable with the deportation of undocumented workers. And on and on.
This essay articulates many of the things I have been unclearly thinking for some time, so thank you for that. I think that one more factor may have been the decline in manufacturing jobs: people haven't tended to take the idea of unionizing service and office jobs as seriously as manufacturing unions, even though some service and office jobs are unionized.
The preamble to the US constitution begins ""We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...". Large corporations and very wealthy people have a great deal of power; states have a great deal of power. The remaining people need offsetting power or there can never be a "more perfect union". If unions can no longer supply enough offsetting power, the Federal government is the only remaining source large enough to do so. Currently it's failing badly.
Agree 100% but for years I've noticed that when white commentators talking about "the working class," they're pretty clearly referring to the *white* working class, and they don't seem to have "pink-collar" workers (who are mostly female and often of color) in mind either. In making a beeline for Reagan in 1980, many white workers, male and female, chose racial solidarity over worker solidarity -- with predictably disastrous results. I'd like to believe that progress has been made since then, but support for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024 makes me wonder. I want to know more about this, but I'm not sure where to look.
Until at least January 2029, the federal government will be full on anti-union. Even if a pro-union Democrat like Biden is elected in 2028, labor will be an insufficient counter-veiling force against generations of the bipartisan erosion of labor rights. The union movement of the early 20th century was driven by the fight between Capitalism and Communism and in reaction to the concentrated wealth of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. Now, the only likely sufficient counter-veiling force is government. Government can institute universal health care, paid family leave, a living wage, make employers pay benefits on a prorated basis for part-time employees, (like the EU). free child care, eliminate the cap on wages subject to payroll taxes, and free college or trade education. In short, all the kinds of things that labor accomplished in the 20th century. Sure, a stronger labor movement will help, but labor is a necessary but insufficient source of fundamental reform. Dreaming that unions will fix our problems is as delusional as thinking that Trump will abide by the rule of law.
The US economy no longer affords widespread prosperity, and it hasn't since the 60s. That is the reform that is needed, an economy that does that. In 2015, Harvard B-School professors discussed "restoring shared prosperity." They said, "The foundation of an economy with shared prosperity is a STRONG COMMONS - a set of communal assets and institutions that an economy and companies rely on to be productive . . . an educated work force, pools of skilled labor in areas important to its business, vibrant networks of suppliers, strong physical infrastructure, a core of basic research that can be commercialized, and so on" (https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/challenge-of-shared-prosperity.pdf).
How to get there? 1. Slow down globalization and technological change. 2. Redistribute the gains (yes, that means a more progressive tax system, including higher tax rates on higher levels of income). 3. Boost overall economic growth. 4. Address the political paralysis (not much offered here). 5. Reinvest in the commons.
I think focusing on the nation's strong commons is a more inclusive strategy for reforming the economy than focusing on the labor sector.
Another thought, from historian Gary Gerstle, author of "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era." Now that the Neoliberal order has ended (the 2008 Crash), he sees a new political economy taking shape: "For the economic realm to prosper, state involvement is needed at a level that was deemed unacceptable during the neoliberal era. There is a growing recognition that states must intervene in markets to address questions of economic security, opportunity, and welfare" (https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Analytical-Series/cafe-econ-a-new-political-order-emerges).
This is what the Democrats should be running on.
I'm interested in any and all thoughts.
Reading Robert Reich's Coming Up Short right now which tells his tale of pushing economic populism for decades with limited success from Democrats. The labor movement got government to make real change but I just don't see how labor power can rise to the levels needed to be the driver of change in America. It has to be the government. I am currently working on a book about Wicked Good Government: Dismantling Our Greed Economy that focuses on completely revising our personal income tax system to eliminate corporate welfare and use that money as efficiently as possible by bolstering current programs or creating new ones. Globalization and technological change should help, not hurt the general welfare if managed correctly, so no need to slow that down. Thanks for the links!
You're welcome.
Have you gotten to the part where he explains why Democrats resisted his economic populism?
Yes. Both Clinton and Obama pivoted to deficit reduction and were either complicit in deregulating Wall Street, Clinton, or too easy on Wall Street, Obama. Both listened too much to Robert Rubin instead of Robert Reich, which was labeled the battle of the Bobs.
Got it. Both Admins were operating under Neoliberalism.
Speaking of which, what did you think of Gary Gerstle saying a new political economy is taking shape, one where "states must intervene in markets to address questions of economic security, opportunity, and welfare." That's Reich's economic populism, yes?
Reich points out that government already intervenes in the market just generally on the side of Capital instead of people.
Since 1981 we have systematically reduced the scope and power of unions in the USA - and at the same time we have witnessed the secular decline of the middle class ( with its
associated lack of purchasing power) . It didn’t happen quietly -
we put both family members to work, then one got a second job on top of the first - just to claim middle
class status. When that failed , we resorted to unwise credit card debt .
Somehow “ Greed is Good “
came into mainstream fashion- or at
least praying to the god of maximizing profits above all else
( including common decency) .
Now , instead of an FDR like course correction- I ( gasp) foresee more of a declaration of martial law and
the rise of Big Brother because he alone is the perfect solution uh huh .
I think it's too easy to blame Democrats here (not that this article blames them, but many other people do). In a democracy, it's the job of politicians to represent their constituents. So when Reagan and Thatcher won the elections (and Reagan by a real landslide... only the state of the Democratic candidate voted for him...), based on a neoliberal (read: ultra-capitalist) agenda hidden under soaring rhetoric, the tone was set. Now, Democrats would HAVE to talk the same language if they wanted to win elections again.
Today, the problem is even worse. GOP voters have been put in an "alternative facts" bubble by neoliberal, neocon, and then neofascist GOP leaders. So now, union leaders have to face the fact that part of their own members believe all the GOP lies and therefore WANT them to endorse GOP politicians.
The only solution, IMHO, is to find a way to prove to them how utterly false the entire universe they came to believe in by now actually is.
Perhaps a good start: www.leavemaga.org.
The Neoliberal Order is in decline. A new political order is emerging. See https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Analytical-Series/cafe-econ-a-new-political-order-emerges.
Fascism was always the end goal of neoliberalism.
Read Quinn Slobodian's "Crack-Up Capitalism".
Wil do. Thx.
Fwiw, I do believe that the vote for Reagan in both 1980 and 1984 was driven more by racism and sexism (esp. anti-Roe v. Wade) than by neoliberal economic considerations. Whether non-rich white people have learned anything from that and subsequent decades I don't know. I tend to see Trump II as our hitting bottom. Will it be enough to make us collectively deal with reality? I don't know. Watch this space.
Agree about the vote for Reagan, Susanna. "Racism has always lurked in the modern GOP’s DNA, from Goldwater’s opposition to desegregation to Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens and states’ rights rhetoric" (Stuart Stevens, author of "It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump").
Nice Labour Day post. But labour and the left must come to terms with the stagflation crisis of the 1970s which opened the door for Reagan and Thatcher, and killed the social democratic alternative. Eg Mitterrand. A democratic socialist alternative existed based on the Keynes of the 1930s… managed trade, capital controls, socialization of investment, the euthanasia of the rentier, a strong labour movement. Bastard Keynesianism won the day, but the left Keynesian agenda is still a relevant option.
was a
Kudos, hitting the proverbial nail on the head … I’m teacher, albeit teaching through my Substack (EdintheApple) and I was a staffer for my union. NYS has strong public employee union laws (Public Employees Relations Board) and every unit with in the state
has a local unit with a negotiated collective bargaining agreement, we need the same in the private sector.
Unions are active in local politics, from door knocking to phone banks to in-person visits to elected. I’m proud of my national union leadership, Randi Weingarten, unions must be built from the bottom up, hopefully, as in Europe, have a major voice in policy creation.. and, we have far better songs than management 😉
Solidarity with the Strikers!
An injury to One is an Injury to All!
….
Colorado Meatpackers Strike over Wages, Safety
—First U.S. Slaughterhouse Walkout in 40 Years
https://world-outlook.com/2026/03/19/colorado-meatpackers-strike-over-wages-safety/
On March 16, 2026, for the first time since the 1985 strike against Hormel[1] in Austin, Minnesota, workers walked out at a U.S. meatpacking plant, this time in Greeley, Colorado, just north of Denver.
On February 4 this year, after eight months of negotiations with JBS Swift, the members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 voted “yes” to authorize a strike.
The local was a hold-out following national negotiations by the UFCW with JBS, which signed a contract with 10 other locals in May 2025. But Local 7 said the wage package offered was inadequate given inflation, on-the-job hazards that were not addressed, and company harassment and intimidation of employees.
….
Beautifully written and great data thank you. Perhaps the American unions can learn from the scandinavian ones. The NYT some time ago ran an article on union movements across the world. US unions are unusual in that 1) they tend to bargain company by company, rather than sector by sector 2) they place more priority on job security over wages. This leads them to focus on "protecting their weakest-performing members" as they NYT put it. A number of comments were about that I believe.
Great points and beautifully written thank you. I wonder if the US labor movement can learn from the Scandinavian ones.
There is far from enough pressure from below. And even if there is, there’s no opposition party that is willing to respond positively — with action, I mean, as opposed to empty talk as is the trade mark of the post-Clinton Ds.
Implying that there’s a party willing to restrain capitalists to any meaningful degree is (to put it politely) dishonest.
Theoretically, it’s possible to reform the Ds. But the odds are terrible.
Starbucks will never get a nickel of my money due to its abusive reaction towards employees at stores that desire to unionize.
Institutions like the NLRB existed to stabilize the economy against the shocks of workers revolts, much as democracy stabilized the transfer of power against previous methods of disposing of undesired leaders. The powers that be seem to think that these institutions were only in place to protect *us* from *them,* and so they've dropped their shields.
And there's what the guru of the "free market above all" capitalists had to say about the relationship between owners and workers
" What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and, one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen, who sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind, combine, of their own accord, to raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions, sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters, upon these occasions, are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the superior steadiness of the masters, partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under of submitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing but the punishment or ruin of the ringleaders.
But though, in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage, there is, however, a certain rate, below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of the lowest species of labour. "
and later in that book & chapter:
"Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes to regulate wages in particular trades, and in particular places. Thus the 8th of George III. prohibits, under heavy penalties, all master tailors in London, and five miles round it, from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than two shillings and sevenpence halfpenny a-day, except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in money, and not in goods, is quite just and equitable. It imposes no real hardship upon the masters. It only obliges them to pay that value in money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in goods. This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III. is in favour of the masters. When masters combine together, in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage, under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to accept of a certain wage, under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very severely; and, if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same manner. But the 8th of George III. enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt to establish by such combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the same footing with an ordinary workman, seems perfectly well founded. "
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations ,Book I, Chapter VIII, - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3300/pg3300-images.html
Sounds like he's saying that the only strength workers have is the ability to withhold their labor in order to gain bargaining strength. And the owners will conspire together with the government to make laws preventing the workers from banding together (forming unions). Otherwise, the owners can hold out longer than the individual workers in any pay dispute. And that the owners are more likely to have the ear of the government and get laws in their favor, and be able to enforce them.