After deregulation opened truck routes to new entrants in 1980, carriers turned to cheaper, nonunion drivers and employed no-frills trucks. Sweeney s Blitz Today, though, workers may be receptive to labor s renewed message, coming as it does after two decades of wage stagnation and heightened inequality. Now more than half of families say two members must work to make ends meet. If unions do regain power, Corporate America is certain to feel the squeeze. With just a tenth of private-sector employees in unions today, most employers have had a free hand to hold down labor costs.
Employers still have the upper hand in most unionization battles.
It is a combination of lightly regulated labour markets and global economic forces that has done much more than particular fiscal policies to favour the rich over the poor. In America and Britain, except at the very bottom of the income distribution, wider wage differentials have been the most important force behind increasing income inequality in recent years All countries have been buffeted by the forces of changing technology and stronger global competition. The answer is that deregulation in America and Britain has allowed market forces to do their work, whereas in continental Europe powerful trade unions, centralized wage bargaining and high minimum wages have propped up the wages of the low-paid. A study by Richard Freeman of Harvard University confirms that, in general, wage inequalities are smallest in highly unionised countries. They also know that wealth is a zero-sum game that is, the more money workers make, the less profit a corporation makes.