NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Stacey Vanick Smith.

2021 has been an extraordinary year for the US labor market.

Record numbers of workers quitting, millions of open jobs, wages rising across the board.

In a lot of ways, workers have more power right now than they've had in decades.

And they're using it.

People are switching careers, getting raises and going on strike.

Tens of thousands of workers in the US have gone on strike in the last few months alone.

Today on the show, we talk with Eric Loomis, author of A History of America in Ten Stripes.

He talks about the history of unions in the US, where they are now and what he sees as

the future of organized labor.

Eric Loomis is the author of A History of America in Ten Stripes.

And Eric, I'd love to start out in the early days of organized labor in the US.

This is the mid-1800s.

Everything is pretty scattered, pretty disorganized.

When does it become clear that unions are going to play a pretty major role in the US

economy?

Probably the biggest moment where it seems very clear that unions are going to start playing

a critical role in American life is 1886 with the eight hour day strikes.

That what had happened in previous decades is that you had the development of railroads,

you have the development of a nobly capitalism, people like John DeRoccafeller, JP Morgan,

...