My father, Russell John Hassard, was a union worker in a Dedham, Massachusetts, company from the 1940s through the 1970s. He was a shop Steward for many years. George Lakoff spoke for my father and many other fathers and mothers who worked in American companies, some of which had unions. This discussion is about the importance of workers unionizing, whether in a Right-to-Work State or Forced Unionization State.

Lakoff identified several frames that should be used when discussing the importance and value of unions. Unions have provided workers with a way to negotiate with the management of corporations, from small to the largest. As an aside, this is not an American issue but an important global issue.

Here are the frames Lakoff identifies.

• Unionization is a freedom issue. Unions function to equalize the company’s power over the employee. Short of outsourcing, companies can only function with resource workers. If the company is unionized, all the workers as a group have bargaining power that a solitary worker does not.
• Workers are profit creators. Conservatives like to speak of wealthy company owners and investors as “job creators,” as if they “give” people jobs and create jobs as gifts for people out of work. That is nonsense. The truth is that workers are profit creators and that no one gets hired unless they contribute to the profit of owners and investors.
• Pensions are a freedom issue. A pension is a delayed payment for work already done. This is the most fundamental truth about pensions, which is rarely said. It is an unframed truth. When you take a job and a pension comes with it, it is part of your pay and employment conditions. It is common for workers to forego higher current pay if there is a significant pension since the pension is money to live on when you can no longer work. It is part of the employment contract… The money is earned.
• Unions are agents of freedom—freedom from corporate servitude and wage slavery. Without unions, employees have to individually take what is offered, usually far less than they would get with a union: not just pay but worker safety, health care benefits, pensions, reasonable working conditions and hours, and reasonable vacation time. What is “reasonable”? What the union members can negotiate. Unions create freedom.

In the next administration, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz will support unions and provide the political support that workers need for their financial and family future.