Photo by Pablo Fernández

Gary Cunningham remembers sitting at the dining room table as a boy, listening to his father relate stories about his work as a union grievance chairman.

One especially resonates with him today.

A woman, sexually harassed by a manager, appealed to the union for help. Cunningham’s dad took careful note of her pain and distress. And then he unleashed the fury of the union on management, securing his coworker the safe, dignified work environment she deserved.

It’s that deep concern for others, forged elbow-to-elbow on the shop floor and often handed down from generation to generation, that most distinguishes union members from the Jeffrey Epstein class of billionaires and other bullies who prey on the vulnerable.

Cunningham, who followed his father into the labor movement and blazed a decades-long career as a United Steelworkers (USW) activist, knows that unions remain the staunchest bulwark against the 1 percenters who are dividing America into a land of haves and have-nots.

“They just don’t care,” Cunningham, now vice president of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) chapter in Albany, New York, said of Epstein and others of his ilk.

Epstein, a one-time money manager who committed suicide in 2019, spent decades trafficking women and teenage girls to the nation’s wealthy and powerful.

As revelations of his crimes stirred revulsion among ordinary Americans, Epstein also came to symbolize something more—a

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