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Showing posts from August, 2011

The Spirit of the Wobblies

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was formed to fight the harden, brutal corporations in the Twentieth century. There was a big difference in the way the unions fought against the giant corporations. The AF of L called for a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. This sounds good but the AF of L had to get a contract with the employer. This usually ended up in courts and with lots of lawyers. You can see how this is working for us (membership down). Now the IWW Wobblies played for keeps. They wrote in their preamble to their constitution: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things in life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class. The Wobblies (IWW) never had more than 60,000 members, but it shook up the nation as had no other orga

Adversity Equals Opportunity

The old cliche, “In all adversity there is a window of opportunity,” has never been more relevant than today. We are in a good position for the corporations and G.O.P. have shown their hands. Will we repeat the past and miss our opportunities again? You would think that if you were in a poker game and all the players’ showed their hands except for you that you could win if you stayed in the game; but history has shown that in the past labor has folded and left the game. Now, folding if your hand is not strong at the time is a good play sometimes, but to leave the game is not good poker if you know what their hands are every time. We know what their hands show for they have shown them in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan, and many other states. This isn’t the first time unions became complacent and failed to see what was going on around them. One has only to look back in history at the missed opportunities. Examples of missed opportunities include, the AFL-CIO’s plan t

Can We Catch a Ride in Your Tax-Subsidized Corporate Jet?

I am sure the taxes we pay to subsidize the corporate jets takes care of the fuel and upkeep, and we workers, most of us, have never ridden in a corporate jet. I am also sure our families would love to take our vacations in one instead of being packed in our car, paying $4 a gallon for gas and driving without the air conditioning in hopes of saving gas. Or catching a ride to our children’s Little League baseball games in a tax-paid helicopter. Love the Bush tax cuts or take the tax cuts for the rich off the table in the debt ceiling argument. Then in that agreement we were told we Social Security and Medicare people were getting way too much so they are cutting us and we still don’t get a ride in the corporate jets. What the hell? The 1 percent of the people who have the most think we workers are the most generous people or the dumbest. They probably think the later. We need to wise up. What the anti-workers agenda is just going to get worse. The Republicans have no problem holding

NFL and NBA: It’s About Breaking the Union

This time we have a lot of millionaires versus billionaires and our millionaires are kicking ass. How? By the old union way having hundreds of athletes showing extraordinary solidarity. When a typical pro career last only 3.5 years, the pressure must be intense, but the NFL won. Now the NBA owners are crying poverty, which is just a cover to break the union. The NBA owners have much in common with classic labor disputes including misrepresentation of owners losses and so-called worker excess. This struggle is really not about billionaires versus millionaires after all, but it is the billionaires versus everyone else, including fans. This might be a time when the athletes of the NFL ad NBA start thinking about a good defense is a good offense and think about asking, ‘Why do the NFL or NBA even need owners for they could have fan-owned teams similar to the Superbowl Champion Green Bay Packers.’ The Packers have 112,000 owners and a large percentage of all proceeds go to local communi

The Day the Middle Class Died

Saturday, August 6th, 2011 Friends, From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated. Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "I

What the Hell Happened in 2009?

What the Hell Happened? We need the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and we were very close in 2009. President Obama and Vice President Biden co-authored the bill and it had passed the Congress. Organized labor invested $450 million in the Obama campaign, and the Democrats had or were very close to a 60 filibuster-proof vote in support of the Act. The AFL-CIO had a war chest of $14 million dedicated to the passage of the Act. What’s more, the Democrats and organized labor, and the media did an excellent job of keeping it very quiet, and most businesses were unaware of the campaign. This was to be passed in 2009 so what the hell happened? 
 We know that a union busting organization by the name of “People Works International” was on this like a dog on a bone. Check these people out: http://www.peopleworkslabor.com?EFCA.html They are a piece of work. We need to get to know them to know our enemy (Art of War). We have a chance to beat them. What did the AFL-CIO get for its money

Old, Nonviolent Tactics

Tactics means doing what you can with what you have. In the world of give and take, tactics is the art of how to take and how to give. Our concern is with the tactic of taking, how the have nots can take power away from the haves. Saul D. Alinsky had some of the best tactics to use. The symphony tactic: the plan was to buy tickets for workers and feed them baked beans before the symphony that the wife of a corporate mogul’s attended. The workers won. The O’Hare Airport tactic: organizers counted the number of stalls in the restrooms of the airport and then give union members money to tie up the stalls. At the time it cost 5¢ to use the toilet and the user could stay as long as they wanted. The organizers also got men to line up to use the urinals. The workers won. The gum tactic: when college students were unable to reach an agreement with the college administration, the students, who were not allowed to have fun, dances or drink beer on campus, were asked what could they do? The