> While that might turn out to be true short-term, it ignores the lesson of history, which is that pandemics have always resulted in labor unrest--often to the point of armed insurrection.<p>The pandemics (except for the 1918 flu) listed actually caused demographic collapse. It took over a hundred years for the populations to recover. I don’t think anyone thinks COVID-19 will cause anything like that. In addition, those pandemics killed a lot of young, previously healthy people, whereas with COVID-19, the mortality rate among young, previously healthy people is really low.<p>These pandemics in the past caused a labor shortage by killing a large percentage of people in their prime. Again with the exception of 1918, the economy of the day depended heavily on manual labor, hence the labor shortage was felt more acutely. This is not the case now.<p>I think the article is making superficial comparisons to reach a conclusion that is unwarranted.
The problem with unionizing and demanding better wages is that workers who do it will be replaced with cheaper alternatives, namely, overseas workers or robots.<p>People on the street recognize this, at least the overseas workers part. It's a big reason why Trump was elected.<p>Biden seems to have figured it out; he recently released a quite hawkish political ad accusing <i>Trump</i> of being too pro-China.<p>Actually it's good if labor costs explode: That means ordinary people are earning more, and a robust middle class is essential for a healthy society. It might have painful consequences for quarterly P&L, but if the plebs can afford a nice middle class lifestyle, they're unlikely to storm the mansions with torches and pitchforks.<p>If you own a company, you should read "exploding labor costs" as "pitchfork insurance."