The Law Is Rigged Against You if You Want to Unionize
Our system of labor law and regulations has too strongly tilted the playing field in favor of companies.
By Erik Loomis
April 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
Credit.Zak Tebbal
Labor activists had great hopes for the attempt to organize the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., and the effort by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union attracted national attention.
President Biden released a video in support of the right of workers to join a union without company interference. As far as I know, no previous president not even Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Harry Truman made such a direct statement about a specific union campaign. Other high-profile supporters of the union from Senator Bernie Sanders to the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II appeared at rallies in Bessemer.
Fear was the overwhelming emotion Alvin Major felt when, on a chilly November morning in 2012, he went on strike at the Brooklyn KFC where he worked. “Everybody was scared,” said Major. He may have been fearful, but what Major didn’t know was that he was about to make American history – an early leader in a labor movement that some historians now see as the most successful in the US in 50 years. Major was paid just $7.25 an hour as a cook at.
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“Too often we identify with our bosses and our companies instead of with our fellow workers. Your boss is not your friend. Without a union, your boss can fire you at will. And while you might be the best worker the company has ever seen, you have no power to control your own destiny without a union.” A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis
Currently, our country is suffering from a crisis of unemployment and inequality. Wages have been stagnant for years. Freelance, gig, and contract work is a growing sector in the economy, but these workers remain mostly unprotected. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, but Jeff Bezos is worth $182 billion. During a pandemic that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans, supervisors at a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant were taking bets on how many employees would get C