You say >Why does everyone jump to "demise of unions"? And then >Wages are not growing because of a policy to screw labor out of its earnings, and the policy

You say >Why does everyone jump to "demise of unions"? And then >Wages are not growing because of a policy to screw labor out of its earnings, and the policy is working. Well yes, said policy would not be and was not tenable with powerful unions. Such abuses are only possible when workers have zero power, i.e. in the absence of unions as forces in the political and economic sphere. There has also been a concerted intentional policy of wealthy capitalists to demonize and destroy unions over the past few decades, continuing to this day, complete with legislation aimed at their destruction taking a variety of creative and ruthless avenues, violence and killings, extreme economic coercive force like shutting down entire businesses and factories in retaliation to even a sniff of workers talking about unionizing, and a massive and well financed propaganda effort. And the policy is working. The most powerful unions are teacher's unions and charter schools are being slammed through by wealthy interests in region after region with the explicit purpose of killing them off. Things actually are complicated, we aren't making them so.