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by slg 1979 days ago
It isn't surprising once you reframe the issue. These unions are successfully suppressed for the exact same reason that people are inclined to form them. The labor class in the US simply doesn't have (or perhaps more accurately doesn't yield) the political power that the labor class does in many other countries. The forming of unions will help them get more power, but the act of creating a union already requires a certain level of power which many US workers haven't yet achieved.
2 comments

That is by design, really. The working poor in this country have been ideologically divided by moral wedges such as abortion for decades now. Few poor republicans and poor democrats would like to admit that they are in the same economic boat, and as a result typically the former votes against their own economic interest on the grounds of their moral principles.

For the wealthy in this country, the political footballism is the perfect machine to ensure their position on the economic ladder remains at it's lofty heights, and inequality continues to widen by the year. I really don't think republicans like Mitch McConnel care at all about an issue like abortion, they just use it to drum up votes from their base in order to further their economic policy goals.

> Few poor republicans and poor democrats would like to admit that they are in the same economic boat

They might agree that they're in the same boat, but they'll disagree with why they're there.

Poor democrats will blame corporations for keeping wages low and sending jobs to China and lack of government assistance programs. They think the solution is to increase taxes on the rich to provide better social programs.

Poor republicans will blame illegal immigrants for stealing their job, or they somehow think the government is in their way. They think the solution is to cut taxes on the corporations to create jobs (regardless of the fact that this never works).

The labor class has tons of power. The labor class just doesn’t care much for unions in the US.