No More Worker Sacrifice
Unions are Rising Up. It’s About Time
“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders — What would you tell him?”
I…don’t know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?”
To shrug.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Relax. This isn’t an Objectivist article.
Yesterday, Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in California, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington walked out of their hospitals and began a three-day strike. This is a shot across the bow: the largest union involved in the strike has threatened a “longer, stronger” strike in November if their demands aren’t met.
Here are their demands:
- A $25 hourly minimum wage
- Wage increases of 7 percent for the next two years, and and 6.25 percent each year afterwards. Please keep in mind that inflation was 8.3 percent in 2022
- Fully staffing hospitals, instead of chronically understaffing and running workers ragged to save money
