Unions Are on Frontlines of Fight Against Inequality
Stop & Shop’s stores were ghost towns during the recent strike. With workers standing outside in picket lines, customers stayed away , leading to one of the most effective strikes in recent memory.
The grocery clerks and bakers and meat cutters holding signs were protesting proposed cuts to their benefits, but their plight also resonated with the public because they represented something bigger: working Americans across the country whose wages are barely budging while the cost of living skyrockets in such places as Boston and corporations rake in record profits.
In the recent wave of strikes nationwide, unions have effectively linked their cause to the broader fight against income inequality that ramped up nearly eight years ago with Occupy Wall Street. And for the most part, they have succeeded in fending off cuts and even adding new protections.