As Rich As They Are Mean

Unions in the United States are few and far between and insufficient to represent the working class in the most economically powerful nation in the world. To top it off, the billionaires are lashing out at the unions as they seek to outlaw them.

It really is sordid, dirty, scandalous and indecent. I could use many more adjectives to describe them, but I’ll leave it to you to find other variations in our rich language. Let’s get to the point: Lawyers for SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, and Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos — both of whom are more than rolling in dough — contend the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong when it gave rights to workers in 1937.

Almost 17 half-decades ago — 87 years ago to be exact — under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal policy, the court affirmed the National Labor Relations Act, which not only allowed workers to form unions, but also guaranteed retirees the right to organize and that retired workers would not suffer poverty. Moreover, the act fostered what is known as the American middle class, those citizens who believe they are only a few steps away from the greatest of prosperity and wealth. And that formed the basis for social culture and the bait for millions of immigrants around the world who aspired to the “American dream.”

It’s a detailed history, but there is no time to lose. (Time is money, isn’t it?) But it was all merely a farce in which the daily turn of the wheel would repeatedly lead to an economic situation that you could not compare to the lives of Musk or Bezos. They hold first and second place on the short list of the world’s wealthiest people, and they are the ones who want to dismantle the NLRB because that is where workers present their cases when they are illegally fired in retaliation for organizing.

The problem for the powerful is that unions — which have been decimated for decades by courts that favor corporations — seem to be giving hope to younger workers in a country whose demographics have been shifting in favor of minorities (African Americans, Latinos and migrants of any ethnicity), minorities that are increasing in number and potential. It should be noted that 2023 saw the highest number of labor strikes in the U.S. since 2000, according to data from the Department of Labor. The Labor Department reported 33 major labor strikes, with 458,900 workers calling for higher wages and better working conditions, a situation which rattled corporate autocrats. That translates into 16.7 million lost working days, a good deal more than the 127,000 workers who went on in 2022, at a loss of 2.2 million working days.

This class confrontation — because it is class confrontation, even if we want to eliminate that phrase – leads us to such personal worth. Bloomberg released its list of the planet’s billionaires, and Bezos has regained the highest title with $200 billion in capital. Musk was relegated to second place, with “only” $198 billion, because the poor little centi-billionaire “lost” $31 billion in 2023.

According to Oxfam’s report on inequality, the five richest men in the world have doubled their capital since 2020, while during that time, almost 5 billion people around the world have become poorer. In its analysis, the organization estimates that it will take 230 years to end poverty, something that leaves the U.N. and its 2030 goals in a bad light.

However, Oxfam also points out that seven out of 10 of the world’s largest corporations have a billionaire CEO or a billionaire as a major shareholder; and I reiterate that it is these two, Musk and Bezos, born representatives of power and corporate concentration of fortunes, who are asking the Supreme Court — it would take a lot of effort to say it is a court of justice — to declare unions illegal in the U.S., taking advantage of the fact that six of the nine justices clearly lean conservative, a guarantee that when it comes to imperial estates, the powers “democracy” respond to the credo that a more egalitarian world is not possible.