Unions have value in turning nation around

The promise of free market capitalism is glorious. In free markets, labor moves easily to more rewarding jobs and entrepreneurs aim their drive at unfulfilled needs. Supply and demand, coupled with competition, moves prices up and down.

Is that what we have? Media, banking, oil and even beer companies are highly consolidated. Health insurance companies have consolidated so that in most areas single companies have 50 percent of the market, killing competitive pricing. Prices seldom go up and down, as low fuel costs demonstrate - they only go up. Labor acts more like a market, as gains in productivity and corporate cash hoarding result in falling starting salaries (even among law and Harvard MBA graduates). Raises typically exceed inflation by just 1 percent. Families feel the pinch and small business suffers.

Political scientists released a paper this year describing our government as dominated by a highly influential economic elite and that "ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States."

Managed globalism, trade policy, and tax policy can be used to turn things around so that the economy works for more than the top 1 percent who have received 95 percent of the gains in this recovery. Our representatives must work together to spend tax dollars in service to all Americans, such as with needed infrastructure work, instead of only serving that economic elite. We can reject endless war, corporate welfare and laws favoring polluters over the environment. We must protect wages and workers' rights as we have for 80 of our best years as a nation. Raising the minimum wage will help, unionization would help more but, realistically, unions must first prove and communicate their value. If we can regain the hope we can create the change.

David Troland

Arlington Heights