Labor Unions Have Lost Their Way
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From the earliest days of American industry, labor unions played a major role in championing workers’ rights, fighting for fair wages, safe working conditions and better benefits.
As Labor Day approaches, unions will be sure to remind us how much we have to thank them for. And they’ll be right. But we’ll also be reminded how far they’ve fallen. The labor movement successfully improved working conditions in the 20th century, but it has lost its way in the 21st—veering from its original purpose and putting politics above workers’ needs.
Many union members in America don’t work in industry at all—they are government employees. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2022 “the union membership rate of public-sector workers (33.1 percent) continued to be more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers.” Government unions are some of the most powerful in the country—especially the teachers unions.
The AFT and the NEA are more concerned with left-wing causes than their members’ interests.
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