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Our economy is out of whack, and workers know it. Their wages are flat, CEO pay continues to skyrocket, and a pandemic has left tens of millions of workers unemployed and dramatically undermined job security. Income inequality—the gap between the haves and the have-nots—continues to grow, and workers lack the bargaining power to meaningfully address it.
There is broad recognition among experts that the decline in union density is a major contributor to the increase in income inequality. When unions were stronger, workers had the power to demand higher wages and better benefits. But as the percentage of workers covered by a union contract has declined—it’s now below 7 percent of the private-sector workforce—workers have less power, their wages have stagnated, and income inequality has worsened.