Sunday, April 10, 2022

Amazon Unions: It's About Inequality

 https://www.ft.com/content/7b0fa691-ec18-43ec-81ae-172c0e44dc0a

The issue here is not inflation but the distribution of wealth between corporations and the ultra-wealthy on the one hand and workers and the middle class on the other. The fact that workers regained some power in negotiating wage increases (by no means a certainty) is not inflation. That is a canard wheeled out (along with others including projected declines in economic growth of productivity) whenever workers gain some power.  However, these imputed links are not backed by empirical evidence. What is backed by overwhelming evidence is that while the U.S. economy has been growing for decades, most of this growth has lined the pockets of corporations -- which means the wealthy as share buyback proliferate -- and the wealthy, notably the ultra-wealthy.  While this phenomenon has multiple causes, one of strongest causes has been the reduction in the bargaining power of labor resulting from the decimation of labor unions, itself caused by the promulgation of anti-union legislation in recent decades. The fact that one local union was able to assert some power largely because of local circumstance is taken by many as the harbinger of crippling inflation.  I don't think inflation hawks should be worried.  This is not the proverbial canary in the coalmine.  Labor still faces impossible odds against gaining power on a large scale.  And if they do, there is always the tactics used during the Homestead strike.

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