We should know our union history

I recently read J.D. Vance’s recent best-seller, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and also the review in the Sun Herald.

It is the personal story of the 32-year-old author, his roots in rural Kentucky and early life in the factory town of Middletown, Ohio.

The book is touted as explaining why large numbers of low-income white workers voted for Donald Trump. While I agree with Vance that anger, poverty, alienation and frustration at what many regard as “The System” played a large part, that is not the whole story. I am disappointed Vance and Washington Post reviewer Karen Heller missed the main point: Knowledge of history is woefully lacking across society, and without such understanding, it is difficult to be a good citizen or cast a knowledgeable vote.

What history? Labor history! Vance’s life was literally saved by his grandparents, who had migrated to Middletown from Kentucky. Pawpaw got a job at Armco Steel, which was a profitable union company. As in union benefits, high wages, health care and pension. This income of Vance’s grandparents sustained the rest of the family. And neither Vance nor reviewer Heller seem to appreciate this.

By the the time J.D. was born in 1984, Ronald Reagan had all but completed the destruction of union power, and the movement of factories and jobs to overseas locations accelerated. Unions were busted, and we lost the skills, the income that sustained American workers and the educational resources essential to the making of good citizens.

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 5:00 AM with the headline "We should know our union history."