"A rising tide lifts all boats," goes the old adage. It's a dubious promise: pay no attention to yawning income gaps, say the cruise ships to the dinghies, we're all getting paid. But the same ebbs and flows don't apply to everyone. Median family income has been declining for the first time since the Great Depression. According to economist Emmanuel Saez, 93% of all income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1%. We're told we're three years into the post-recession era, but if you haven't noticed, it's not your fault.'What’s surprising is how, in a still sluggish post-recession economy, Caterpillar is actually doing well.'

Few places better illustrate the uneven recovery than Joliet, Illinois, where nearly 800 factory workers are locked in a bitter, three-months-and-counting strike against their employer. Caterpillar, famous maker of yellow bulldozers, has demanded its employees accept a six-year freeze on wages and pensions; the machinists' union says its members had no choice but to walk out

The political climate in the US today is such that it's open season on unions. The ongoing evisceration of public workers' collective bargaining rights, solidified with governor Scott Walker's triumph in Wisconsin's June recall election, set the trend, one that spilled over to other states and is now spilling over to private sector workers as well. That the justification for revoking those rights – state budget shortfalls – didn't hold up to evidence that many of the largest shortfalls were in non-union states, made no difference.