Labor and small business were once natural allies in a New Deal coalition that backed muscular policies to limit corporate power and build a thriving middle class. A growing antimonopoly movement is rekindling this alliance, writes Stacy Mitchell in The New York Times.
“In a welcome joining of forces, labor unions and small-business advocacy groups this month supported an antitrust bill that would give New York State sweeping new authority to sue corporate titans like Amazon for abusing their market power in ways that harm competitors or workers.
“Labor and small business make an unusual political pairing these days. The idea that small businesses are aligned with big businesses and opposed to labor unions took hold in the 1980s and has been conventional wisdom ever since.
“But this alignment wasn’t always the case. In the decades after the Great Depression, unions and small businesses were natural allies in a New Deal coalition that backed muscular policies to limit corporate power. Fortunately, a growing antimonopoly movement is rekindling this alliance, which could be critical in reversing labor’s long decline….”
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Photo Credit: FPG/Archive Photos — Hulton Archive, via Getty Images via New York Times
