The one issue that Republicans in Nevada and across the country came out with one voice, like the Borg, more than any other in 2022 was the economy.
Adam Laxalt, Joe Lombardo, Jim Marchant, Michele Fiore and Republican congressional candidates in Nevada and from coast to coast all thought that people whose votes had not yet been determined by Hunter’s laptop might at least vote Republican because of “Bidenflation.”
Meanwhile…
The overall inflation rate over the past 12 months was 3%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday.
Latest Government Reports (Does Elon Musk Believe Them) or not) also show that employment growth remains mighty and the unemployment rate remains close to historically low.
On a month-on-month basis, from May to June, overall inflation increased by 0.2%, according to BLSIt has increased by 0.1% in three of the last six months.
As it turned out, hourly wages rose by exactly the same rate as inflation from May to June, or 0.2%, the BLS said in a report released a day earlier.
However, year-on-year wages were only 1.2% higher, which was not enough to keep up with the aforementioned inflation of 3% over the same period.
There is nothing up-to-date about wages failing to keep up with inflation. It has been happening for decades.
Despite pandemic-induced wage increases, low-wage workers still can’t afford basic needs
Well, the economy is structurally designed to rob working people and redistribute wealth upward. This is the result of over 40 years of policy choices propagated by the wealthy, corporations, and Republicans, and all too often supported or at least acquiesced in by Democrats.
But given what public and political opinion has accepted as the standard for economic performance over recent decades, the current economy is far from the chaos that Republicans would have you believe it is.
Sadly, as satisfying as it may be, Republicans are now going all-in:oh well, never mind“when it comes to inflation in particular and the economy in general, schadenfreude doesn’t pay the rent or put food on the table any better than republican trickle-down economics.
Which brings us back to jobs and wages. And the state of the country.
Old and up-to-date workers’ movements and rights
The 21st century economy is not the tech bros (sorry Elon) or venture capitalists. It’s not even a professional sport, as Nevada elected officials of both parties would have you believe. It’s not even Biden’s beloved lithium.
The basis of the 21st century economy, like the basis of the economy of every century, is work.
Last week, employees at a third Starbucks store in southern Nevada voted for the trade unionjust like the workers at Trader Joe’s, Amazon and many other chains across the country do, and it’s all part of “new” workers’ movement.
But while workers have voted to unionize at more than 300 Starbucks stores nationwide, none have yet negotiated or signed a contract. And while workers at Starbucks, Amazon, and others have succeeded in proving improper and illegal union-busting tactics in National Labor Relations Board proceedings, the penalties meted out to the companies are little more than a slap on the wrist. Modern U.S. labor laws are deliberately designed to allow companies to delay and thwart unionization efforts.
As Walmart employees scholar a quarter of a century ago.
US economy adds jobs in June, even as employment falls
Some advocates for higher wages and better working conditions in the service sector and other traditionally low-wage employment sectors suggest that the organized labor model of the 20th century is out of date, at least as a way to reverse the decline in union membership and provide better pay, protections, and benefits for groups of workers who have not traditionally been unionized.
The conclusion of this argument is that the key to decent pay and benefits and decent treatment of workers lies not in the negotiation of collective agreements between one group of workers and one company or industry, but in the law.
But even a up-to-date law that would make collective bargaining easier cannot be passed in Washington.
The labor movement (aged and up-to-date) and sympathetic elected officials, including Democrats in Nevada’s congressional delegation, have endorsed the federal PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, which would reform the nation’s overly pro-business labor laws and make it easier for workers to organize and bargain collectively.
Of course, the bill has no chance in the Republican-controlled House. And in the last Congress, when Democrats controlled the House and passed the bill, it couldn’t pass in the then-Democratic Senate, thanks not to serial suspect Joe Manchin, but to other Democratic (or near-Democratic) senators—Mark Warner of Virginia, and Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
If a bill that is supposed to make it easier to organize and negotiate contracts cannot be passed, legislation directly mandating improved working conditions may be even more complex to pass. For example, you may remember the aforementioned Senator Sinema bow and thumbs down to raise the federal minimum wage.
All aboard
The best outcome of next year’s election results could be the status quo. A lesser best-case scenario would be for the Democrats to keep the White House, but for the Republicans to keep the House and win the Senate. Of course, the worst-case scenario is the socio-political equivalent of hell breaking loose and swallowing up all of civilization.
After the pandemic brutally alleviated so much economic inequality, Washington, and Biden and congressional Democrats in particular, have done much to literally save the people of Nevada – a particularly needed relief for a place where the priorities of politicians of both parties rarely stray from serving the most politically powerful industries in the country.
Nevadans cannot count on the federal government to bail them out again.
States and cities turn to community organizations to combat wage theft
Nevada Democrats recently won the uncommon opportunity to control the governor’s office and both houses of the legislature for four years. demonstrated they have no desire to save anything except the political prospects of their party.
The latest Gallup poll showed that public support for trade unions is 71%, which is an approval rating has been growing steadily for over a dozen years. Hopefully, the up-to-date labor movement will grow, and with it, nationwide support for unions—not just the labor unions full of white guys with lunch pails and demanding hats that politicians like to identify with when they say the word “work,” but real work for the 21st century.
Growing public support could make a difference.
Politicians, it seems, love to say they are “fighting” some “fight” or something. Well, not necessarily. They are almost always following a path set by others, often by some wealthy special interest.
But sometimes when public opinion forces Overton’s window to open up a little more, elected officials will follow someone else entirely, like perhaps the 24 workers who recently voted to unionize at a North Las Vegas Starbucks. These workers and their colleagues, not just in Nevada but everywhere, deserve to be treated not with the way so much of the 21st century economy has treated work — as a disposable commodity — but with dignity.
It promises to be a long, demanding slog against a powerful and stubborn opposition. But the options are few. And the alternative—growing economic inequality—is unacceptable. Or should be.
