In the last few months, Kellogg’s, John Deere, McDonald’s, and SEPTA have all faced worker strikes as employees have demanded better working conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how essential blue collar workers are to the functioning of American society, from nurses in hospitals to the Dining Services workers in Bear’s Den and the Danforth University Center. Now, amidst a labor shortage, is the perfect time for American workers to strike and demand better from large employers who for far too long have exploited their labor while ignoring their needs. Every worker deserves to work and live with dignity, knowing that their humanity is defined by more than their capacity to generate profit – and unions can center workers’ needs as we seek to build a better, more equitable “normal” in the aftermath of COVID-19. 

Americans unions have long been a staple of American life, helping win policy changes and corporate concessions ranging from the elimination of child labor to the implementation of the 40-hour work week. By organizing workers to come together and withhold their labor until their employers are willing to meet their demands, unions have been able to effectively attack the most important leverage that employees have to make change: corporate profits. But in recent years, trends in union membership have taken a troubling decline. In the 1950s, American union membership exceeded 30%. In 1983, it was down to just over 20%. In 2019, that number was 10.3% – the lowest in recent memory. As membership falls, bargaining power does as well, as actions have lower levels of participation and have less funding with less dues.

These changes have been accompanied by a host of negative social and economic changes. As American unions grew weaker and less able to negotiate for better working conditions, the wages of working people stayed stagnant or fell. Between 1979 and 2013, the wages of middle-wage workers increased by just 6%, a rate of less than 0.2% a year; for the lowest-income Americans, net wages fell by 5% – making low-wage workers worse off than their parents before them. Working conditions also worsened as more companies labeled their employees as “independent contractors,” ineligible for certain federal benefits or labor protections, and outsourced labor instead of directly hiring employees, reducing wages. Combined with offshoring, automation, financialization, and increased corporate consolidation in American workplaces, the conditions for working people have only grown more dire and desperate, leading to more deaths of despair, shorter life expectancies, and greater incidences of mental illness.

American unions were largely responsible for curtailing the worst abuses employers imposed upon their workers. Research has shown that American labor unions played a significant role in curtailing income inequality throughout their organizing peak in the 1960s, and that union members are more likely to have employer-provided healthcare, more likely to have paid sick days, and are paid higher salaries than their non-union counterparts. Unions are so effective that America’s largest employers spend over $340 million a year on “union avoidance” consultants who work to identify and exploit loopholes in labor laws to disrupt collective bargaining efforts.

For this reason, America’s most inhumane workplaces are the most aggressively anti-union. Consider Amazon, one of America’s largest employers, which worked aggressively to intimidate union organizers and defeat a vote to unionize in Bessemer, Alabama during April of this year. With employee turnover at 150% each year, Amazon is rated as one of the most dangerous workplaces in the nation, causing nearly double the injuries compared to competitor warehouses. Constant surveillance tracks employees’ productivity every minute of their shift, allowing only two minutes every hour to use the restroom – forcing Amazon employees to have to urinate into bottles on warehouse floors, and forcing Amazon drivers to have to defecate into bags to meet unrealistic productivity goals. Amazon is such an awful place to work that they paid workers $50 to tweet nice things about their company – a program that speaks far more about working conditions at Amazon than a disingenuous 280 characters ever could. This is the reality of unchecked corporate power. Jeff Bezos’ $196 billion is built on the broken backs of Amazon employees who work grueling and dehumanizing shifts. 

Without a counterbalance to the power of America’s oligarchic ruling class, American workers will only continue to suffer – which is where unions can play an important role in demanding better. That brings us to the present day, when tens of thousands of American union workers are demanding better from their employers. With demands ranging from an end to pervasive sexual harassment in the workplace to reduced hours, in industries ranging from fast food to Hollywood, workers and unions are fighting for the bare minimum that workers should expect. After a decade of decline, heightened union activity shows how COVID-19 has led workers to re-evaluate their working conditions and demand jobs that provide dignity to work. As Robert Reich so eloquently put it, “The reluctance of people to work doesn’t have anything to do with unemployment benefits. It has everything to do with workers being fed up.”

Now is also the perfect time for workers to join unions and demand better. By choosing to strike during a labor shortage, American workers are organizing when their bargaining power is at its strongest. The wave of union organizing throughout “Striketober” reflects a broad recognition that working conditions are indecent and inhumane, and that workers have had enough. Companies also have no excuses: The 18 months of the pandemic, which was defined by waves of evictions, hunger, and financial loss for working families, was also a period of record economic prosperity for America’s wealthiest. Companies where employees are striking and unionizing have recorded record profits: For example, in the first quarter of 2021, Amazon recorded $8.1 billion in profit, triple what they made during the first quarter of 2020. These companies absolutely have the resources to finance better working conditions and higher wages – unions will offer the necessary push for companies to make those consequential decisions in the right direction.

As students, we can get involved with this work too. Groups like WUGWU, the union for undergraduate and graduate student workers, are organizing on campus to push for improved working conditions, policy changes, and labor protections that will benefit current and future students. On our campus, participating in actions and donating to support organizing efforts can help sustain movements and push for better working conditions, such as WUGWU’s Fight for $15. Beyond campus, standing in solidarity with striking workers is the best way for us to support the labor movement that was responsible for gaining us critical labor protections, and to push forth progressive policies including a $15 minimum wage, paid parental and sick leave, a four-day work week, and universal healthcare. Donating to Labor Movement Relief Funds, calling your elected representatives to speak out in support of  unionization efforts, and not crossing the picket line when workers strike are all ways we can help organizers succeed in implementing their demands.

Supporting working people is a moral imperative, and there is no better time to organize than now. If we believe that every worker is entitled to work that offers dignity and decent conditions, we must embrace the labor organizers who are demanding these changes for all workers. By coming together and demanding better, working people and unions can shape our country to be one that works for the working-class – not just the wealthy and well-connected.