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> Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. But the big wins were almost

> Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. But the big wins were almost a century ago.

runarberg 4y ago
This may be true in the USA where union membership is in an all time low, however in the rest of the world unions are still landing deals which guarantees more labor rights, this includes longer parental leaves, more sick time, longer vacations, more benefits for part time workers, more enforcement against violations, more education and guarantees for at-risk groups (such as foreign workers), equal pay certificates, 36 hour work weeks, 32 hour work weeks, anti-harassment guarantees, etc. etc.
- lostcolony 4y ago
  It also misses (well, leaves out; not sure the intent of the comment) the fact that unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. When the US was an industrial, workers were treated poorly, unions began to form, fought for worker protections. As the US has transitioned into a knowledge/service economy, creating industries that didn't historically have unions, and industrials have been on the decline, unions have also declined. And where the US was once at the forefront of worker protections, we are sadly more like a third world country than a first world at this point.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    > unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. The red line isn't normalized by workforce size, but it suggests the big gains (five-day work week, 8-hour workday) were before unions really became powerful. Unionization was only a 15-year trend, then it stalled-out. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/United_States_union_membership_and_inequality%2C_top_1%25_income_share%2C_1910_to_2010.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/United_S...
    - runarberg 4y ago
      This is a really unfair interpretation of this graph. Unions had a big impact on these rights, but unions back then were nothing like the Unions today. In the 19th century, Labor unions functioned more like activist group then unions in the modern sense. There were quite a few of them, they often included members across businesses and even industries (of these IWW still exists and still functions like this). There were no protections for collective bargaining so there was no need for unions to mass enroll whole businesses, what was important was organizing for every event, and build a solidarity across workers, rather then unionizing whole workplaces. The union’s job was to organize direct action and build up solidarity around them. A successful strike had union members and non-members alike striking in solidarity. A very successful strike crossed many and diverse workplaces. As you can imagine these often turned violent when scabs refused to participate (as they were allowed to), or when unions with conflicting ideologies were competing for members and propaganda. This changed in the new deal era, particular when the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act; NLRA) was enacted in 1935. And you can see the uptake in union memberships on your graph. This act legalized collective action and protected workers in labor unions. This formed the basis unions as we know them today. From then on it became more important to organize each workplace, rather than each direct action, and the protections would only apply for members, not participants. So memberships suddenly became more important than participation. Comparing memberships between these two eras is effectively comparing apples to oranges. While today membership count is an indicator of effectiveness, this was far from truth prior to the New Deal.
heavyset_go 4y ago
Right, union workers were shot at and bombed fighting for the rights that we take for granted today. Another way to look at this is that there hasn't been much progress in the labor market over the last ~50 years. Wages have been stagnant for that long, states introduced legislation that neutered unions and organization is at a comparative low. Given the trend of replacing employees with contractors who have less rights and benefits, you can even say that we're taking steps backward compared to where we were not too long ago.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > there hasn't been much progress in the labor market over the last ~50 years The open question is whether this is the cause of effect of the decline of unions. I can make a case for either.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Which is a pretty great testimonial for unions. They’ve been so effective that their lasting impact has sustained a century of adversarial counter efforts and half a century of decline in active membership. In contrast, the actual concentrations of wealth and power can’t seem to go more than a few years without flailing into crisis so severe everything stops to apply a temporary salve so it can all happen over and over again.

> Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. But the big wins were almost a century ago.

runarberg 4y ago

This may be true in the USA where union membership is in an all time low, however in the rest of the world unions are still landing deals which guarantees more labor rights, this includes longer parental leaves, more sick time, longer vacations, more benefits for part time workers, more enforcement against violations, more education and guarantees for at-risk groups (such as foreign workers), equal pay certificates, 36 hour work weeks, 32 hour work weeks, anti-harassment guarantees, etc. etc.

lostcolony 4y ago
It also misses (well, leaves out; not sure the intent of the comment) the fact that unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. When the US was an industrial, workers were treated poorly, unions began to form, fought for worker protections. As the US has transitioned into a knowledge/service economy, creating industries that didn't historically have unions, and industrials have been on the decline, unions have also declined. And where the US was once at the forefront of worker protections, we are sadly more like a third world country than a first world at this point.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. The red line isn't normalized by workforce size, but it suggests the big gains (five-day work week, 8-hour workday) were before unions really became powerful. Unionization was only a 15-year trend, then it stalled-out. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/United_States_union_membership_and_inequality%2C_top_1%25_income_share%2C_1910_to_2010.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/United_S...
  - runarberg 4y ago
    This is a really unfair interpretation of this graph. Unions had a big impact on these rights, but unions back then were nothing like the Unions today. In the 19th century, Labor unions functioned more like activist group then unions in the modern sense. There were quite a few of them, they often included members across businesses and even industries (of these IWW still exists and still functions like this). There were no protections for collective bargaining so there was no need for unions to mass enroll whole businesses, what was important was organizing for every event, and build a solidarity across workers, rather then unionizing whole workplaces. The union’s job was to organize direct action and build up solidarity around them. A successful strike had union members and non-members alike striking in solidarity. A very successful strike crossed many and diverse workplaces. As you can imagine these often turned violent when scabs refused to participate (as they were allowed to), or when unions with conflicting ideologies were competing for members and propaganda. This changed in the new deal era, particular when the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act; NLRA) was enacted in 1935. And you can see the uptake in union memberships on your graph. This act legalized collective action and protected workers in labor unions. This formed the basis unions as we know them today. From then on it became more important to organize each workplace, rather than each direct action, and the protections would only apply for members, not participants. So memberships suddenly became more important than participation. Comparing memberships between these two eras is effectively comparing apples to oranges. While today membership count is an indicator of effectiveness, this was far from truth prior to the New Deal.

heavyset_go 4y ago

Right, union workers were shot at and bombed fighting for the rights that we take for granted today. Another way to look at this is that there hasn't been much progress in the labor market over the last ~50 years. Wages have been stagnant for that long, states introduced legislation that neutered unions and organization is at a comparative low. Given the trend of replacing employees with contractors who have less rights and benefits, you can even say that we're taking steps backward compared to where we were not too long ago.

dehrmann 4y ago
> there hasn't been much progress in the labor market over the last ~50 years The open question is whether this is the cause of effect of the decline of unions. I can make a case for either.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

Which is a pretty great testimonial for unions. They’ve been so effective that their lasting impact has sustained a century of adversarial counter efforts and half a century of decline in active membership. In contrast, the actual concentrations of wealth and power can’t seem to go more than a few years without flailing into crisis so severe everything stops to apply a temporary salve so it can all happen over and over again.