Reaching the End of the PATCO Era? | The American Prospect

Posted in In the News

KI Executive Director writes about the legacy of the 1981 PATCO strike in The American Prospect and the future of unions, worker organizing, and the labor movement as the country faces new political and social challenges.

“Today, 40 years after the PATCO strike, only 6.3 percent of private sector workers are unionized, roughly one-third of the figure in 1981. As unions declined, inequality has grown more extreme. 

American unionists have often seen their struggle in biblical terms, and measuring suffering in 40-year increments recalls the ancient Israelites, who wandered the desert for that span in search of their promised land. “Labor, like Israel, has many sorrows,” observed (new window) the preeminent union leader of the Depression era, John L. Lewis.”

Read the full article at the link below.

https://prospect.org/labor/reaching-the-end-of-the-patco-era/