The major reason Donald Trump was elected to the job he is manifestly unfit for was his appeal to electors in the Rust Belt states. These states had seen a collapse of manufacturing jobs, i.e. union jobs, and millions of people were thrown from the middle class into the precariat. Instead of well-paid, reliable jobs with good benefits, they were delivered low-paid, unreliable jobs with poor benefits. Furthermore, they saw nothing better for their kids. Not surprisingly, they were filled with anger and despair, and in their desperation turned to Trump the saviour.
The U.S. has in fact (Read more…) an anti-union nation. Just how anti-union is spelled out in a recent article in the New York Times entitled “Yes, America Is Rigged Against Workers” in which the author accuses his country of “anti-worker exceptionalism.” He points out that “the United States is the only advanced industrial nation that doesn’t have national laws guaranteeing paid maternity leave … the only advanced economy that doesn’t guarantee workers any vacation … and the only highly developed country (other than South Korea) that doesn’t guarantee paid sick days,” and among the nations of the OECD, it “has the lowest minimum wage as a percentage of the median wage.”
He suggests the overriding reason is the weakness of America’s labour unions. Only 10.5 percent of American workers are unionized. In Germany, 18 per cent of workers are union members, in the U.K. 25 per cent and in Sweden 67 per cent. In Canada, 27 per cent.
The Times article emphasizes that union decline not only has enormous consequences for wages and benefits but also for politics and policymaking. He points out that while unions spend about $48-million a year lobbying in Washington, corporations spend $3-billion.
There is a lesson here for Canadians. If we want to allow workers the middle class luxury of voting after careful deliberation rather than with desperation, we must maintain a strong union sector to ensure they have a voice and to help maintain their confidence in the system. Unfortunately, union membership is currently declining in this country as it is in the U.S. This is, therefor, a good time to enhance the power of the union movement. We should be making it easier to form unions, particularly in the service sector, and mandating union representatives on corporate boards and worker councils in the workplace.
The alternative may be the election of a Donald Trump. And that, as we are seeing with our southern neighbour, is a disaster for democracy.