SEPTEMBER 11, 2026

Workers and our Organizations

Labor Day 2026: Record-High Popularity, Record-Low Power for America’s Unions: Wages now constitute the lowest share of the nation’s income since the government began measuring them in 1947
As the labor share has been declining, the capital share has been rising. The same May study showed that profits’ share of the nation’s income had risen to 12.1 percent, the highest level since 1950. The gap between wages and profits has ballooned over the past six years. Inflation-adjusted wages have increased by just 3 percent since late 2019, while profits have risen by 50 percent. American Prospect

Unions are extremely popular: 56 million workers would join a union if they could
New Gallup polling finds that 71% of people in the U.S. approve of unions, continuing the highest period of favorability in over 60 years. This coincides with the greatest number of workers represented by a union in 16 years. The Gallup polling also showed that unions are favorable across generations and party lines. Gallup: 77% of adults ages 18–34, 74% of adults ages 35–54, and 67% of adults ages 55 and older approve of unions; 89% of Democrats, 70% of Independents, and 52% of Republicans approve of unions. And Unions are more popular than big business. People in the U.S. favor unions over big business by more than 16 percentage points—the greatest gap ever recorded. Economic Policy Institute (DC)

US Labor Unions Saw Membership Gains in 2025, Mostly in States With Bargaining Protections: After years of decline, union membership in the US increased by 411,000 members in 2025, the largest increase since 2008
The report from Illinois Economic Policy Institute makes clear the impact that “right to work” laws can have on union membership: most gains were concentrated in states that protect collective bargaining. Union membership rates in those states were nearly triple than the 26 states with so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken union membership. The Guardian

Arms Embargo as Class Struggle: NYC-DSA’s Anti-War Working Group is building an arms embargo at JFK Airport 

Arms embargo campaigns center workers as protagonists of struggle and actively cultivates anti-imperialist consciousness in the US labor movement. From DSA members’ experience with Break the Chain in New York, arms embargoes are our best chance to impede Israel’s genocide in Gaza and enact democratic control over international labor conditions. Socialist Forum

Our commodities, our costs

Why Did Trump Order Up 660 Million Pounds of Mystery Meat?

“President Trump signed a proclamation last month that will allow the duty-free importation of about 660 million pounds of inexpensive beef. If American consumers knew where that beef was coming from, they might not want to eat it. The cuts of meat covered by Trump’s proclamation aren’t fresh sirloins, rib-eyes and filets. They’re lean beef trimmings that will be added to fattier American cuts to make ground beef. They’re small chunks of frozen meat that could have been kept in cold storage overseas for years. They are the quintessence of generic industrial meat, imported here to be subsequently processed in massive grinders that combine pieces of tens of thousands of cattle from multiple countries, mainly into fast food hamburgers.” It’s not just a clumsy Trump trying to appease hard-pressed US consumers; there’s much more — probable – international corruption in the background, as this opinion piece from the New York Times outlines.

And once that burger — and all the other food and commodities on the shelf — are placed in front of you, you could be paying a different price than the person next to you in the checkout line … 

Electronic shelf labels likely to cost jobs and drive up grocery prices, US report warns: AFL-CIO calls for ban on such labels to protect consumers and workers from surveillance pricing and job cuts

An analysis by the AFL-CIO Tech Institute of the label manufacturers’ own marketing materials found the universal adoption of electronic shelf labels, which are marketed to retailers as a cost-cutting measure, could cost workers between $1.6bn and $6.9bn in lost wages annually and affect between 44,223 and 191,633 jobs.The policy brief calls for a ban on electronic labels to protect consumers and workers. Manufacturers have hailed the labels as a way to collect huge amounts of personal data from customers, increase profits and cut labor costs. The report argues that electronic shelf labels use the same pricing systems that allow dynamic pricing — price changes such as increasing allergy medication prices when pollen counts are high — to surveillance pricing, changing prices based on personal data. The Guardian

Wait, there’s more … Governing the Grid: The data center boom has exposed decades of deferred choices about who plans and finances America’s electricity infrastructure

After decades of flat electricity demand, peak load — the maximum demand for electricity at any given moment — is projected to grow by anywhere from 103 to 197 gigawatts by 2030, with data centers the single largest source of that new consumption. The reason the data center buildout is landing with such potential pain for household energy bills is that the grid has, for decades, been operated by a deregulated patchwork of rent-seeking private companies who have insufficient incentives to build ahead of demand. Whether or not the data center boom continues apace, without dramatic changes to the structure of grid planning and grid governance, that status quo will persist. However, the combination of growing political pressure on AI companies and their need for a reliable and quickly expanding grid presents an opportunity — and the leverage — to change who plans and finances American power. Phenomenal World via 5 Leftie Links

International Input

“Results Not Rhetoric” describes the growth of the Austrian Communist Party, which has moved from a marginal presence to meaningful and continuous strength by focusing on municipal office. Zo Haderekh writes about their approach in Peoples World: 

Uruguay was the site of a conference of progressive and left forces to discuss how to push back against the recent string of right-wing successes in Latin America. A critical part of the discussion there was to recognize that we (North, Central South) are all Americans, albeit occupying different unequal poles due to the imperial policies of the US. A global unity thus is all the more needed to reassert progressive advance and solidarity. See article by Daniel Cholakian in NACLA Reports:  

Building unity across lines of difference without sacrificing principles is — and has been historically — a key challenge for working-class movements. The united front has been one means of doing so; an article by Puya Gerami looks back at Abolitionism and the varied forces they came together to abolish slavery, the anti-fascist united fronts of the 1930s that ranged from France and Spain to China. This included the United States via building the CIO and New Deal. Those historical examples inform his proposal as to how to conceive of a united front to defeat MAGA. It is a lengthy article, but worth the read. Convergence 

Book review: Can We Save Democracy? Hélène Landemore’s case for an alternative system of popular government.

Yale University’s Hélène Landemore’s latest work, Politics Without Politicians, suggests solutions to the flaws of electoral representation are simple and bold: The bums in Washington should be thrown out of office — not just those from one party, but all of them. And not just in the next election, but forever. “Electoral democracy is beyond repair,” she declares. “A system based on electoral representation is no longer — if it ever was — capable of delivering either democratic or good governance.” Instead, she argues, we the people should finally take it upon ourselves to rule directly.” The Nation’s reviewer finds her solutions incomplete, despite the book’s high-octane praise from the likes of Piketty and Acemoglu. “Politics Without Politicians instead makes the case that we must rescue the democratic idea by wringing the democracy out of it. Landemore’s proposals really would disempower the politicians. But they would also, just as surely, disempower you.” Great arguments will ensue.