The labor movement had two important wins, which were largely responsible for the creation of the Middle Class. They were the organizations of the Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers union and the government unions: state, federal, county and city. These wins mean that the workers now had good wages, healthcare and a pension when they retired.
Now what happened? Did the state workers forget who was their enemy and then elected people who voted against them?
The GOP and the federal workers, Post Office mostly, did the same thing—elected the wrong people. Whose fault is this; well mostly the workers and also their leaders for not educating their members. Now we workers have another chance at rebuilding our Middle Class by organizing Walmart, which is the new equivalent of the old Ford Company, and the fast food workers.
The advantage the wage slaves have are the corporations can make the product out of the company, but the corporations must sell the product here and this is where we workers get our fair share. The fast food workers are mostly young and will be diehard union members when they fan out into other jobs, which will be a base for new leaders in the labor movement.
These people who are at the bottom of the economy ladder are not too proud to fight for a fair share and there are a lot of them, such as car wash, fast food, restaurants, auto lube, healthcare clinics and all retail. These workers have nothing to lose. Most have to work two or three jobs just to exist. Now the federal, state, county and city union workers must think they are above all the other wage slaves for they don’t support the other workers and you only see them out protesting when it is mostly too late. An example is the 500,000 postal workers who, a lot of their members are Republicans and vote for the people who are trying to destroy them.
If the government wage slaves wake up and lower themselves to the level that they belong maybe they can save themselves and part of the Middle Class. This goes for all the other labor unions for this is a fight for food, shelter, healthcare, and pensions. The 1% will not just give these things away, but the workers can win by sticking together. Oh hell, is that the bad word called “union?”
To change the abundance of labor in the world is to put more money in the pockets of the laborer to buy the products their fellow workers are making. Otherwise, when there are more products than money, there is slump in the economy. Austerity policies, low wages and automation (robots) were also of concern in the 1950s when Henry Ford II, CEO of Ford, took Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers Union, on a tour of a new engine plant.
Ford gestured to a fleet of new machines and said, “Walter, how are you going to get these robots to pay union dues?” The union leader turned to Ford and said, “Henry, how are you going to get robots to buy your cars?”
This type of change in the labor has created a new type of working class that swings from task to task in order to make ends meet while enduring the loss of labor rights and bargaining rights. They are called “precariat” workers, a group of workers who live on the verge of collapse due to the instability of the nature of their job…