The Labour Spokesman Editorial
While campaigning for presidency of The United States, then candidate Joseph Biden promised that he would be the most pro-trades union president that America has ever known. Since assuming office he has, on several occasions, demonstrated the genuineness of that commitment. In April of 2020 he appointed a task force to study and develop sound proposals for the strengthening of trades unions, with US Vice President Mrs. Kamala Harris assigned to chair the group and Secretary of Labour Marty Walsh as vice-chair. On Monday 7 February 2022, The White House released the task force’s report, which contains nearly seventy different proposals that support worker empowerment, much of which would make it easier for workers and contractors to unite and function.
Proposals include measures and programmes to increase workers’ awareness of their rights, and measures to enforce existing labour laws. The task force assessed that between 1983 and 2021, the already low percentage of unionised workers declined from 20.1% to 10.3%. A truly significant finding was that the decades-long decline in union membership was consistent with, and directly linked to, an increase in the proportion of income in the top 10% across the nation. On the positive side, most Americans have a positive impression of unions, with many stating that they would join a union if given the option to vote.
We of this newspaper commend the above-mentioned approach to leadership to members of our trades and labour union. It is our recommendation that we set about using this approach to analyse what needs to be done in order to greatly improve the strength and effectiveness of the union, such that when we succeed in returning the people’s government to the people — and that may well be sooner rather than later — both arms of our movement will ‘hit the ground running’ and thereby strengthen our efforts for the overall re-development of our beautiful little nation and its people.