The most dramatic change in the system
over the last half-century has been the emergence
of corporate giants like Amazon
and the shrinkage of labor unions.
The resulting power imbalance
has spawned near-record inequalities of income and wealth,
corruption of democracy by big money,
and the abandonment of the working class.
50 years ago, General Motors
was the largest employer in America.
The typical GM worker earned $35 an hour in today's dollars
and had a major say over working conditions.
Today's largest employers are Amazon and Walmart,
each paying far less per hour
and routinely exploiting their workers,
who have little recourse.
The typical GM worker wasn't worth so much more
than today's Amazon or Walmart worker
and didn't have more valuable insights
about working conditions.
The difference is those GM workers had a strong union.
They were backed by the collective bargaining power
of more than a third of the entire American workforce.
Today, most workers are on their own.
Only 6.4% of America's private sector workers are unionized,
providing little collective pressure on Amazon, Walmart,
or other major employers to treat their workers any better.
50 years ago, the labor movement had enough political clout
to ensure labor laws were enforced
and that the government pushed giant firms
like GM to sustain the middle-class.
Today, organized labor's political clout
is minuscule by comparison.
The biggest political players
are giant corporations like Amazon.
They've used that political muscle
to back right-to-work laws,
whittle down federal labor protections,
and keep the National Labor Relations Board understaffed
and overburdened, allowing them to get away
with egregious union-busting tactics.
They've also impelled government to lower their taxes,
extorted states to provide them tax breaks
as a condition for locating facilities there,
bullied cities where they're headquartered,
and wangled trade treaties,
allowing them to outsource so many jobs
that blue-collar workers in America have little choice
but to take low-paying,
high-stress warehouse and delivery gigs.
Oh, and they've neutered antitrust laws,
which in an earlier era would have had companies
like Amazon in their crosshairs.
This decades-long power shift,
the ascent of corporate leviathans,
and the demise of labor unions, has resulted
in a massive upward redistribution of income and wealth.
The richest one-tenth of 1% of Americans now have almost
as much wealth as the bottom 90% put together.
The power shift can be reversed,
but only with stronger labor laws,
resulting in more unionized workers,
tougher trade deals, and a renewed commitment to antitrust.
The Biden administration and congressional Democrats
appear to be willing.
The House has just passed the toughest labor reforms
in more than a generation.
Biden's new trade representative promises trade deals
will protect American workers, rather than exporters,
and Biden is putting trustbusters in critical positions
at the Federal Trade Commission and in the White House.
And across the country, labor activism has surged,
from the Amazon union effort
to frontline workers walking out and striking to
demand better pay, benefits, and safety protections.
I'd like to think America is at a tipping point,
similar to where it was some 120 years ago
when the ravages and excesses of the Gilded Age precipitated
what became known as the Progressive Era,
then reformers reined in the unfettered greed
and inequalities of the day,
and made the system work for the many, rather than the few.
It's no exaggeration to say
that we're now living in a second Gilded Age,
and today's progressive activists may be on the verge
of ushering us into a second Progressive Era.
They need all the support we can give them.