Save The Middle Class' US Must Back Unions' Role, Says Sanders

If the US is “going to save the middle class” then Democrats and Republicans must come together to back the newly resurgent labor movement, Bernie Sanders told the Guardian this week ahead of a Senate hearing on the benefits of unions.

- Michael Sainato

Sanders is holding a Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee hearing on Tuesday with US labor leaders on the state of the US labor movement and efforts to rein in corporate greed in America.

The hearing comes after a wave of successful strike actions by workers and as Congress once again considers legislation that would empower union organizing.

“We have got to expand union organizing in this country if we’re going to save the middle class,” said Sanders. “The American people are sick and tired of corporate greed, of record-breaking profits, outrageous compensation packages for CEOs while workers in many cases are earning starvation wages. That dynamic has got to change. I think we’ve seen real, real progress in the last year,” said Sanders.

Two labor leaders who recently spearheaded successful strike actions – the United Auto Workers (UAW) president, Shawn Fain, and the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien – will be in attendance along with Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America (AFA-CWA).

At the hearing, entitled, “Standing Up Against Corporate Greed: How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families”, the union leaders will discuss the role of labor unions in fighting corporate greed, recent historic union contract gains and the challenges and obstacles that continue to stymie workers’ right to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining.

Sanders, chair of the Senate help committee, sees this as a hopeful time for workers, citing record public support for unions. This revitalization should be seen in the context of growing wealth inequality, said Sanders, and a middle and working class that has been hollowed out over the past few decades in America.