6 - The Lever and the Fulcrum

Summary

Both worker bargaining power and political democracy have been gripped by a mutually reinforcing crisis that has worsened for decades, harming working people (especially communities of color) and undermining our social fabric. This chapter argues that this crisis had become existential by 2020 as the pandemic, policing, privatization, financialization, growing monopoly, and rising unemployment exacerbated inequality, sparked social unrest, and threatened democracy.  It contends that our response must link the defense of political democracy to the fight for bargaining power for workers in the twenty-first century economy through innovative movement campaigns and new alliances that tie together the degradation of the environment, the upending of democratic oversight, and the more general degradation of the political economy to the exploitation of the workforce by rent-seeking corporate power.