Robert Reich Says Productivity Increased By 87% Since 1979, But Hourly Pay Only By 32%. '25% Of Workers Were Unionized In 1979. Today? 10%'

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently said that declining union membership is the reason behind productivity rising by 87% over the last four decades, while hourly pay only increased by 32%. “...

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Today? 10%,” he wrote in a recent post on X, arguing that as unions lost strength, the “super-rich” captured a larger share of the wealth created by labor. “We must build back union power,” he added.\nThis trend isn't new. In a recent talk at The Progressive Forum in Houston, Reich said the shift started in the early 1980s when “the rules of the game changed.” He pointed to the Reagan administration's tax cuts for the wealthy, weaker antitrust enforcement and aggressive union-busting as the turning point. \nDon't Miss:\n“Up until then, the median wage continued to rise with productivity,” Reich said. “But after that, the median wage… began to stagnate and more and more of the nation's wealth and income went to the top.”\nAccording to retired union organizer Bill Barry, 37% of the U.S. workforce was unionized in 1957 and even non-union workers benefited from what experts call the “spillover effect,”  when unions raise workplace standards across the board. But by 2024, only 11% of U.S. workers were in unions, and in the private sector, the figure was below 7%.\nBarry wrote for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee that the “reverse spillover” happening today means non-union companies are now pulling standards down, influencing wages and benefits even for union workers. He also noted that of the 10 largest employers in the country today, only UPS (NYSE:UPS), parts of Kroger (NYSE:KR) and railroads owned by Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK, BRK.B)) have any significant union presence.\nTrending: An EA Co-Founder Shapes This VC Backed Marketplace—Now You Can Invest in Gaming's Next Big Platform\nBarry said that after the 1930s, many unions shifted from grassroots organizing to what's called a “servicing model,” where union officers focused more on delivering benefits than on growing union membership. Organizing new workplaces took a back seat, he said. \nRelying on politicians hasn't worked either. “[President Donald] Trump is not the cause of what we are in. He's the consequence,” he said. He criticized his former boss, President Bill Clinton, for prioritizing deficit reduction over public investment and questioned whether President Joe Biden‘s union support had translated into real gains.\nBoth Reich and Barry argue that organizing must return to the center of the labor movement. Barry asks: What if that political spending had gone into new union drives instead? Reich, reflecting on the current state of inequality, urges younger Americans not to give up. “It's perfectly fine to be depressed,” he said. “But it's not appropriate to be cynical. A cynic feeds off of hopelessness.”\nRead Next: \nImage: Shutterstock","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.35.12","shortVersion":"4.35.12","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2592132761","isCrawlerRequest":true}