The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor Highlight

To ask, “What material gains does my union want in the next few years, and which politicians will help?” is a straightforward question. It can, like all policies focused on short-term material gains, lead to perverse decisions that are destructive in the long term. Construction unions back environmentally damaging projects that will give them some jobs; union pension funds invest in private equity that turns around and destroys the jobs of other union members for a profit; unions may turn a blind eye to all types of atrocious business practices or social policies in exchange for an agreement of corporate neutrality in an organizing campaign, or of targeted support on an issue from a politician. To see this as the normal order of union politics is to acquiesce to the view that unions are not uniquely democratic institutions with the potential to transform society, but are instead just another special interest, out to get whatever they can. The more meaningful question is: “How can the labor movement, after dwindling for decades, turn itself into a force strong enough to bend politics in its own direction, rather than being bent?” A politically powerful labor movement is not one that hires the most plugged-in consultants to advise it which candidates to donate money to in order to get their support; it is one that derives its power from the fact that it has all the people.