Exactly. American unions have been unable to effectively strike because almost all common forms of strike activity and solidarity are illegal. It is illegal to refuse to manufacture with scab materials. It is illegal to strike without authorization from national union leadership who have been bought off by the company in question. It is illegal to organize a general strike. Unions in America can't even enforce actual picket lines -- they can merely stand around outside asking nicely for scabs to respect their right to decent livelihoods. Due to these restrictions, many which were passed into law by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, the constant demonization of unions in the corporate-owned media, and how less than 5% of the private workforce and 7% of the public workforce are unionized, these worker's organs are completely powerless. And yet, many Americans are compelled to work 10 to 12 hours a day through several different jobs just to feed their families, never mind trying to pay for health care. Restaurants workers, for example, are almost entirely non-union and -- surprise -- restaurants jobs often pay less than minimum wage and flagrantly violate workplace safety laws. I've had friends suffer 2nd degree burns over both arms, who were forced to continue their 6 hour shifts in the kitchen under threat of losing their jobs and being blacklisted by other local managers. The absence of workers' organizations, not to mention *effective* workers' organizations, across broad swaths of the American workforce causes dozens of millions of poor Americans to languish in economic deprivation, thus also in medical, educational, social, and political deprivation.
