The artificially high wages forced on the economy by compulsory unionism
imposed economic hardships on other groups—particularly on non-union workers
and on unskilled labor, which was being squeezed gradually out of the market.
Today’s widespread unemployment is the result of organized labor’s privileges
and of allied measures, such as minimum wage laws. For years, the unions
supported these measures and sundry welfare legislation, apparently in the
belief that the costs would be paid by taxes imposed on the rich. The growth of
inflation has shown that the major victim of government spending and of
taxation is the middle class. Organized labor is part of the middle class—and
the actual value of labor’s forced “social gains” is now being wiped out.