On her phone, she saw the clean U-shaped chart: inequality plunged in the ’40s, then climbed again since 1980—especially at the very top.
Union data told a similar story. In 1983, one in five U.S. workers belonged to a union; today it’s one in ten. Yet 2023 brought a surge: nearly 2,600 petitions for union elections, the most in a decade. Workers won about 61 percent of those elections, according to the National Labor Relations Board, but in many cases, companies fought certification through lengthy appeals.
At the picnic table, a coworker watched a rally clip. “We all had to have second, third jobs, side gigs to make ends meet.” The warehouse offered benefits and a clock that never blinked. The rate ratcheted anyway.
Every quarter raised on pasta, every dollar cut from hours, was a lesson in arithmetic no classroom taught.
“Volcano or solar system?” Manny from Inbounds asked, meaning her kid’s science project.
“Volcano,” she said.
“Baking soda.”
He grinned. “Put it on the porch. Let the neighborhood learn fiscal policy.”
The belts clicked over a rough patch, a hiccup in the rhythm. It reminded her of her grandmother describing the stamping presses at GM—how the floor trembled and your teeth ached, but the union meetings steadied your hands. Alma from Returns leaned in by the water cooler. “You know UPS? My cousin’s shop went union. Took a year, but the raise landed. Boss stopped messing with shifts.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. The Teamsters’ 2023 contract with UPS raised part-time starting pay from $15.50 to $21 an hour, secured air-conditioning in delivery trucks, and cut mandatory overtime.
“They get in here, it’s dues, politics, and less hours,” Chris said at Receiving. “My cousin’s plant went union—management outsourced half the shifts. My brother’s mortgage fell apart when his hours got cut.” On the corkboard, someone had penciled a warning—If they ask to ‘chat,’ bring a friend.
Steven Greenhouse, longtime labor reporter at the New York Times, put it plainer: “When a company illegally fires a worker for supporting a union, there are no fines. Reinstatement years later doesn’t pay this month’s rent.”
Asked about such criticisms, an Amazon spokesperson repeated the company’s long-held position: “We don’t believe unions are the best answer for our employees. Our focus remains on providing competitive pay, health care, and a safe workplace.” UPS, for its part, stressed that its contract “provides the industry’s best pay and benefits package for full- and part-time employees.”
In every breakroom story, the risk was real; in every corporate statement, the risk was invisible.
She pictured her badge not scanning; COBRA premiums; the car note; her daughter’s inhaler. Tape guns snapped like little whip cracks. Her grandmother’s ceiling was a corkboard contract; hers was a dashboard’s reds and greens. In the late ’80s, junk bonds and hostile takeovers normalized breaking implicit deals with workers. After 2010, platforms grew on network effects; once everyone used them, they could turn the screws. The word for the slide—enshittification, coined by writer Cory Doctorow—had made her laugh once. Not anymore.