Despite the strength of the US economy, the gap between rich and poor Americans is increasing, and thereby gives light to lack of labor rights.
The richest 1% of the Americans has more than five times the wealth of the poorest 50%, according to the Federal Reserve (FED) of the US. This represents an increase of four times compared to 2000. Only in 2024, the 19 richest families increased their wealth in a billion US dollars, the largest increase recorded in a year.
However, 59% of Americans do not have enough money saved to cover an unexpected expense of $ 1,000.
In a study of 2023, our team analyzed 145 countries, including EU, to understand the relationship between labor rights and inequality. We find evidence that strengthening collective labor rights can reduce economic inequality.
Empowerment of workers
Collective labor rights include the right to form and join a union, to collectively bargain to obtain greater salaries and better working conditions, to declare themselves on strike and to obtain justice if employers sanction workers who exercise these rights.
In the United States, where less than 10% of workers are unionized, affiliates usually gain higher wages than their non -unionized counterparts.
By negotiations on behalf of their affiliates, unions can press employers to offer fair wages and benefits. If negotiations fail, the union can call a strike, sometimes obtaining better higher benefits and salaries.
Some US unions have no right to strike, such as air controllers, teachers and those who work on national security issues. However, most unions have some capacity to implement work stoppages and impose costs on employers to negotiate salary increases and better benefits and conditions.
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Inequality reduction
For our study, we analyze human rights in the CIRIGHTS data set, which uses human rights reports of the US Department of State, Amnesty International and other sources to measure government respect for 24 human rights, including the right to unionize collective bargaining.
Using a score guide, a team of researchers read human rights reports and gives each country a zero score if you have generalized violations, a point if you present some violations or two if there is no evidence of violations. The team assigned scores to the 24 rights from 1994 to 2022.
With these data, we create a measure of collective labor rights by adding the scores of the right to association in the workplace and the right to collective bargaining. The score resulting from collective labor rights varies from zero to four.
The countries where labor rights are systematically violated, such as Afghanistan, China and Saudi Arabia, obtained zero points. The United States, Macedonia del Norte and Zambia, three countries with little in common, were among those who tended to obtain two points, which placed them in an intermediate position. Countries without complaints of violations of the right of association and collective bargaining in the workplace, such as Canada, Sweden and France, obtained four points.
According to the Circhts data set, the strength of respect for collective labor rights worldwide decreased 50%, from 2.06 in 1994 to 1.03 in 2022.
At the same time, says the data set on world inequality, the proportion of income received by 1% with the highest wages increased by 11%.
We use advanced statistical methods to determine whether greater job protection really reduces inequality or is simply associated with it.
Gaps between individuals and ethnic groups
We also measure the evolution of economic inequality through two common monitoring methods.
One of them is vertical inequality, the gap between people’s income within a country (rich and poor). The more unequal a society becomes, the greater its vertical inequality index.
We measure it using the measure of the available income of the Gini index, a common indicator of economic inequality that captures how much money people have to spend after taxes and government transfers.
We discover that an increase in a point in collective labor rights on our four -point scale reduces vertical inequality ten times the average change in inequality.
In the United States, an increase in a percentage point in collective labor rights would be sufficient to reverse the increase in inequality that occurred between 2008 and 2010 due to the great recession and its consequences. It would probably also help stop the growing wealth gap among black and white Americans. This is because income disparities accumulate over time and create wealth gaps.
We also evaluate the connection between horizontal inequality, which measures income inequality between ethnic or other groups, and collective labor rights.
The negative horizontal inequality measures the proportion of the income of a country that corresponds to the poorest ethnic group. The highest scores in this metric indicate that the ethnic group with the lowest income has less income in relation to the rest of society. Black Americans have the lowest median income of all racial or ethnic groups, according to the United States Census Office.
Positive horizontal inequality measures the income received by the richest ethnic group. When positive horizontal inequality increases, it means that the richest ethnic group has more income in relation to the rest of society. According to the same report from the Census Office, Americans of Asian origin had the highest average income.
We discover that more solid collective labor rights, both in legislation and in practice worldwide, also reduce both types of horizontal inequality. This means that they raise the base by helping to improve the income of the poorest ethnic groups of society. They also close the gap by limiting the income of the richest ethnic group, which can reduce the probability of conflicts.
In other words, our findings suggest that when workers have the freedom to advocate higher wages and better benefits for themselves, they also benefit society as a whole.
*Skip Mark He is an attached professor of Political Science at Rhode Island University; Stephen Bagwell is an Deputy Professor of Political Science at Missouri-ST. Louis
This text was originally published in The Conversation
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