Democratic U.S. lawmakers, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say their goal is to transform the U.S. economy including by a more unionized workforce. But is that what Americans want?
Nobody ever got rich because they got a union job. But you can without one. When at 18 years old, a friend showed up where his father told him to go and get his good NYC union job, where he’d work for the next 40 or so years, the woman said no, he didn’t belong there. But she gave him a contact and he did get a different job. His experiences evolved and eventually he built a very successful global business, creating many good paying skilled jobs for others. What a difference not getting a union job has made for him, his family and the community.
Labor unions formed to protect workers’ rights and advance their interests. They formed to improve workplace safety, eliminate exploitation, protect children, safe working hours etc. As laws have changed the need for unions diminished in many jobs. In the private sector, people want to get paid and get promotions based on their value to the company. If they work harder and make a difference, they don’t want to get paid the same as their counterpart who just ‘showed up’ to work. That is the basic difference between union and non-union today, getting paid what you’re worth, not the same as everyone else. I’m not saying unions bring no value to society today, just that the need is not as pervasive as the past.
Facts:
– Over 50% of union members are in just 7 states: California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and New Jersey. Source: https://usafacts.org/articles/labor-union-membership/ What else are these states known for? Five of them make the top 10 most broke states list: are California, NY, NJ, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
– Within the public sector, the union membership rate was highest in local government (41.7 percent), which employs many workers in heavily unionized occupations, such as police officers, firefighters, and teachers.
– The union membership rate of public-sector workers (34.8 percent) is more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.3 percent).
– In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data
are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers.
– The number of wage and salary workers belonging to
unions, at 14.3 million in 2020, was down by 321,000, or 2.2 percent, from 2019.
AOC killed bringing Amazon jobs to her district. “Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation and the power of the richest man in the world,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. Why should corporations that contribute nothing to the pot be in a position to take billions from the public?
Here’s what Arlington VA got instead of New Yorkers: “Amazon will invest $2.5 billion dollars, occupy 4 million square feet of energy efficient office space, and create at least 25,000 new full-time jobs. Our employees and the neighboring community will also benefit from the associated investments from the Commonwealth including infrastructure updates, public transportation improvements, and new access to Reagan National Airport.
With their guidance, we’ve donated more than $19 million to local nonprofit organizations over the past two years and continue to support our neighbors and employees during the global pandemic. Most recently, we announced a $2 billion Housing Equity Fund, which, to start, will help to preserve and create more than 1,300 affordable homes in Arlington’s National Landing neighborhood, in partnership with the Washington Housing Conservancy, with more investments to come.”
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t01.htm
https://time.com/5530386/aoc-amazon-new-york-hq2/
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/a-message-from-darcie-henry-amazon-vp-of-people-experience-and-technology-worldwide-consumer
https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/24/varner-aoc-unions/