UBI helps workers in the workplace – empowers citizens, unites workforce

Second, it is simply not true that UBI is irrelevant to workers and the workplace—again provided we are discussing a thick version of UBI. There are two key reasons why UBI would help workers in the workplace. First, if workers did not rely entirely on their wage for their subsistence, they would likely be able to take more aggressive positions in collective bargaining (Andy Stern, former president of the SEIU, has referred to UBI as a “national strike fund”).4 A subsistence UBI would decrease the opportunity-costs of hardline negotiating for higher wages, better benefits, fewer hours, and better working conditions. Workers, in such a position, could also demand greater democratic rights within the workplace. This is not to suggest that wages would cease to be a site of contention. On the contrary, by providing a stronger foundation from which to negotiate wages and benefits, there would be an opportunity for an increase in labor struggles.

The second way that UBI would aid workers in the workplace is more speculative. If a subsistence UBI were to be achieved, there is almost no way of imagining this taking place without massive organized support from workers. It would need to be collective demand that itself would require organizing and mobilizing workers, alongside the unemployed and homeless, and even stay-at-home moms and dads. The kind of social solidarity that such a radical policy position like a subsistence-level UBI would require would undoubtedly have important consequences for the organization of the workplace.