The post-Reconstruction United States has never seen durable progressive change without the labor movement’s involvement. The postwar economy’s rapid, widely distributed gains in material conditions for everyday Americans may be the banner accomplishment, but the movement’s contributions to progress go far further.
Working women organized through the labor movement became significant drivers of the suffrage movement. Unions played an essential role in the civil rights movement, including the steelworkers and United Auto Workers (UAW) providing crucial support for the March on Washington. Some of the earliest workplace discrimination protections for same-sex couples were won by the United Mine Workers of America.
Since industrialization, the labor movement has been the greatest engine not just of advancing worker interests but of achieving social progress more generally.
This is not to say that the labor movement is the perfect embodiment of hippie harmony. It has and continues to struggle with issues of sexism, racism, nativism, and other sundry prejudices. But what sets the labor movement apart is the principle of solidarity that has enabled it to build broad-based coalitions in the face of those disagreements.
As Richard Trumka, the late president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), wrote, “Progress, steadily gained, is fueled by the power of a mobilized community. Every victory in the fight against oppression has ultimately been achieved by that spirit of solidarity.”
It’s the principle of leaving no one behind that unites the labor movement, both internally and with other causes. Union organizers, members, and leadership are consistently on the front lines of fighting for broadly shared prosperity.
All of this is why the scorn shown by elements of the abundance movement — the latest neoliberal rebrand — ought to be deeply concerning for those of us in the labor…
Auteur: Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
