Think about what America was like in 1970, the year the E.P.A. was founded. It was still an industrial nation, with roughly a quarter of the work force employed in manufacturing, often at relatively high wages, in large part because of a still-strong union movement. (Funny how Trumpist pledges to bring back the good old days never mention that part.)
Trump promised to help workers in the Rust Belt. Here’s how he can show he’s serious.
The “runaway shop,” where companies transfer work to nonunion facilities to save on labor costs, has largely been tolerated under American labor law. But the president-elect can show that he cares deeply about this issue by appointing NLRB members and a general counsel who believe labor law can effectively be used as a deterrent for such corporate decisions.
.. But there is a lot that a president can do to empower the NLRB to act on behalf of workers and protect them from their companies moving south or south of the border for a lower earning, nonunion, workforce. Trump will have to learn that if he wants to help workers, it won’t be through Twitter or sweetheart deals, but through his powers to appoint and give public direction to executive agencies.
Trump’s attack on a union leader will come back to haunt him
There’s no doubt that President-elect Donald Trump’s attack on United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones is disturbing for several reasons. It shows his still-scarily thin skin: Hillary Clinton may have lost, but “a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons” remains as true as ever. It shows he still loves to bully critics, no matter how powerless they are, and he will continue to do so in a hair-trigger fashion when he has the powers of the federal government at his disposal. And it shows he will double down when confronted with his own lies.
.. Unlike Trump, who forgot he promised to help the Carrier workers USW Local 1999 represents, Jones has actually worked to save the plant’s jobs. Unlike Trump, who has shipped thousands of jobs overseas, Jones has fought to keep jobs in the United States. In Jones, Trump attacked someone who represents working America more authentically than Donald Trump ever has or ever will.
.. Firing back on TV at Trump is all that it takes to get his attention and get days of free media coverage for ideas that actually help working Americans. He’ll hurt himself with the voters, but he won’t be able to stop himself.
The Cost of a Decline in Unions
More broadly, I disdained unions as bringing corruption, nepotism and rigid work rules to the labor market, impeding the economic growth that ultimately makes a country strong.
.. about one-fifth of the increase in economic inequality in America among men in recent decades is the result of the decline in unions.
.. A study in the American Sociological Review, using the broadest methodology, estimates that the decline of unions may account for one-third of the rise of inequality among men.
.. A full-time construction worker earns about $10,000 less per year now than in 1973, in today’s dollars
.. worst abuses by far haven’t been in the union shop but in the corporate suite.
.. Germany’s car workers have a strong union, and so do Toyota’s in Japan and Kia’s in South Korea.
.. In Germany, the average autoworker earns about $67 per hour in salary and benefits, compared with $34 in the United States. Yet Germany’s car companies in 2010 produced more than twice as many vehicles as American companies did, and they were highly profitable. It’s too glib to say that the problem in the American sector was just unions.
.. raises concerns about some aspects of public-sector unions