How Strong Unions Build Strong Democracies

[Originally published on May 14, 2022 in the National Catholic Reporter. Read the full article here.]

A Review of A COLLECTIVE BARGAIN: UNIONS, ORGANIZING, AND THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY by Jane McAlevey

It is no secret that the U.S. labor movement has been dwindling for decades. Simultaneously, and not coincidentally, economic inequality has widened significantly and, more recently, U.S. democracy has begun deconsolidating. Among democratic scholars, there's been a plethora of writing on the origins and solutions to the latter but less on the interconnections between all three matters.

It is not a coincidence that the more social democratic systems in much of Europe have greater union density or, in the case of France, more legal power than in the United States. Greater power for unions means greater influence for working-class interests that include stronger universal social welfare. In A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy, union organizer Jane McAlevey does not explicitly make this connection, but argues that unions, and the tactics they employ to win, are necessary for the Democratic Party to win the titular fight for democracy.