When the cons came in, they took everyone by surprise. They did a LOT of damage, surreptitiously, and planted a LOT of seed in the minds of many, many people. Unfortunately, the seeds were poison, wrong information. Now we have millions of Americans who just think…backwards…and an entire generation of young people who never lived in New Deal America and, instead, got…this.

One of the right’s first, and most successful, assaults on America came about with Reagan’s 1981 busting of the Air Traffic Controllers union by firing something like 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers who had gone on strike. He put a bow on that “tough-guy” stupidity by instituting a lifetime ban for any controller who had stuck by the strike. The administration began firing controllers August 5, 1981. Beginning August 6, 1981, it became MUCH more dangerous to board an airplane. To this day, 42 years later, the profession has never fully recovered from that damage.

But it started something. Over the years, the American middle class had become the largest and most powerful middle class in history (<– that’s not hyperbole) and it stayed that way from the 1940’s until Reagan. He showed the way. The unions had created that large middle class. Eliminating the unions seemed the answer to greedy employer’s dreams. Bill Clinton, working with the Republicans in Congress, really opened the floodgates. He hadn’t been President long but he supported and signed NAFTA and the stampede of off-shoring American jobs took off.

During that time, corporate CEO’s took to running their boards, as well. They began to be compensated in stock and options. The money from stock and options is classified as Capital Gains. This isn’t “earned income.” It’s classified as “unearned income.” THEN, Reagan lowered the Capital Gains tax rate to 20%. This at a time when earned income was still being taxed at roughly 40%. This meant that the people with the bulk of the money were also being taxed at a lower rate than anybody else.

Now, the whole POINT of compensating your CEO in stock is that as he or she improves the company’s fortunes, the CEO, personally, makes more money. It didn’t take them long to look at the P&L and see that employee compensation is usually the largest single expense line. (It usually includes their own compensation, but they never see that part.) It’s a very short leap to “fewer employees, each making less money, means more money for me!” Okay, when you look at it that way, I can see the attraction – IF you’re the one making the money. Everyone else? Not so much. But YOU live with the results.

When you walk into, say, a bank, and see 7 teller stations with only one, maybe two, people behind the counter running around like crazy trying to keep up with the line now 22 people long, you can know that’s a choice by the CEO. He wanted more money. Can’t find help in the local store? Fewer employees=more money for the CEO. Self check-out? Brilliant! Bag your own stuff, we don’t need ANY employees! Awesome! MORE money for the CEO. But most of us aren’t CEO’s. We’re the workers (you know, the people who do the work that generates the revenue the CEO gets to keep) and we’re on the “getting screwed” end of that deal.

None of this is new, of course. People have been trying to organize and employers have been fighting it for generations. But in the 1930s, the value of unions became clear and people began organizing and fighting. I mean, REALLY fighting. Bloodshed and deaths were fairly common in those union fights. I would not say the unions ever had the upper hand but they gained enough power in the country to raised the standard of living for everyone. Union busting has been around as long as union organizing (obviously) but it got good under Reagan. When companies started off-shoring most of their jobs (because of Clinton and Republicans and NAFTA) the unions took it on the chin.

We’ve heard for years that all of the “good jobs” were off-shored. The part they leave out is that they were the “good jobs” because they were the union jobs. Cons succeeded in smearing the unions and their intentions and motivations and union membership fell precipitously. But this has been going on for a long time and it looks like, perhaps, the people have had it. I’m seeing union actions and union participation increasing a lot these days. I’m also hearing corporate media decry unions. Casually, but definitely. (I recently heard a talking head on Bloomberg radio say, “There hasn’t been a successful union action in this country in 40 years.” This only a few days after the UPS driver’s union won their fight…)

Cons still don’t get it, of course. They’re still convinced that giving all the money to the richest people will have the best results for themselves. They’re still wrong. (They’re easily deceived because they WANT to be deceived.) But they only represent somewhere between 35 and 40% of the population. The OTHER 65% of Americans DO get it and they’re embracing unionization more and more. It’s a good thing.

It’s going to take awhile, of course, but the return of union power will bring about positive change for the working man. The bosses have benefited from “divide and conquer” and the workers will benefit from NOT being divided. The phrase ‘workers of the world unite!’ is directly from the Communist Manifesto. (I think that’s what scares the rank-and-file con the most.) But the idea of unions is as purely CAPITALISM as price gouging.

I need gas to get to work. The people who provide gas get to charge whatever they want for the product they control. Pay or suffer. It’s the American way. Well, the workers have something the bosses need, too. Labor. Controlling the labor pool through unions gives the workers a voice at the table and THAT will result in better standards of living for everybody – even non-union workers, who benefit from prevailing wage rates established by unions.

I’ll tell you this: I’m glad to see it happening. I hope the movement catches FIRE and becomes the normal way of things again. Life was better for a FAR larger group of Americans back then and it can be again. I thought, this being Labor Day, I should mention it…