...this morning, I came across an article about the N.F.L. players union, "Kendall Claims N.F.L. Proposal Would Mean 18 Percent Pay Cut." Apparently, the minimum salary in the NFL in 2010 is $325,000. Nice! There's also a picture accompanying the piece of running back Darren Sproles, who will earn $7.28 million in 2010 if he signs (my emphasis). Nice gig!
I guess unions have been good for the American worker; they're millionaires now.
But this is a little misleading. Unions are actually in decline in the United States.
According to The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman, at the end of World War II, more than a third of all non-farm workers were members of a union. As late as 1970, 27 percent of workers were in a union. Today the number is closer to 11%. Wal-Mart, America's largest corporation, pays its non-supervisory employees an average of $18,000 a year with meager health care benefits, if at all.
How did the U. S. evolve to the point where we have unions for millionaires but not minimum wage earners?
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