Union Perspectives

“Shape up” the old way employees were hired on the docks when there were no unions. The shape up used by Maritime companies would force dock workers to beg and bribe their way into a job each day just like farm laborers or day laborers do today. They usually stand in a parking lot or on a street curb early in the morning for a day’s work. I have found the shape up system being used at a junior college in northern California. It is used to hire adjunct instructors and other jobs called class aides. The way it works is the college has a tenured dean, who is in charge of so many departments, who hire department directors, who is an at-will employee with a yearly contract. Each director then hires adjunct instructors and their class aides and none of these wage slaves have protection or benefits and are at-will employees. The power is all with the deans because most all tenured workers are deans nowadays and on up the administrative chain, who are given a budget and this is the responsibil

Wage slaves are living in a precarious lifecycle and can only obtain part-time work, which is known now worldwide as “precarity.” This description now fits just about all wage slaves from skilled labor, manufacturing, fast food, farm slaves and even the professional managerial class slaves. This came about when workers are not hired in permanent positions, but are hired as temp workers—in reality these workers are hired into a temporary status, also called “permatemping,” which is the new anti-union model to keep unions out. This new status makes workers feel precarious about their jobs, this and the cuts in unemployment benefits makes it harder for workers to imagine surviving any job loss. For temp workers, there is the elusive hope that their job will turn into a full-time position, sort of like winning the megamillion lotto, but this is the hope that strings the suckers along. In reality very few will ever get full-time status. Some companies have four temp agencies supplying w

Wages and safety should be the owners’ responsibility: pension, healthcare, and seniority on the job should be the unions’ responsibility. If unions had the responsibilities of pensions and healthcare and a union member has to move to another area, their pension and healthcare follows them. With this scenario the power shifts to the member and union and not to the corporation or government entity. If the corporations or government control the pensions and healthcare, this gives them a wedge issue to use to split the single workers and family members or the new workers against the workers about to retire. If all unions, like the Building Trades, took control of their pensions and healthcare (healthcare might not be the issue now that it once was) it would take away the talking points about how unions are responsible for bankrupting companies and government entities with huge pensions, which nonunion workers don’t have. It is the pensions and healthcare that is used to turn public opini

Bullies: kids bully with their mouths and fists, billionaires bully with money. The DeVos, Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the Walton family are just some of the oligarchy bullies, who see unions as an enemy of freedom and union leaders as thugs. Interesting the only freedom these billionaires are concerned with are their own. Their hatred of all things union and why they want to destroy unions is because they cannot control unions and unions are the only thing standing between their obscene wealth and making the U.S. a Third World country. To these greedy bastards money is the true power and with that they want to destroy the power source for the unions’ money by passing “right to work’ laws in Michigan and other states. If passed, these laws will essentially ruin unions and defund Democrats’ election contributions. The oligarchies are looking to the 2016 presidential race. They will push for less government, less taxes, fewer regulations, which all, in their selfish eyes, destro

To save capitalism as we know it today we must not get to the point where the world has an unconsumed surplus of products. What has kept this from happening so far is that we and others have been unloading the surplus on other countries, and to this we help develop the resources by shipping our jobs to these countries. We then extend this process to all countries on the planet until every country is producing every year and every day and an unconsumed surplus builds up, which corporations cannot dispose of in other countries. The reason for this is that corporations have raped and pillaged every country on earth of its cheap labor. Now you may ask, how do you dispose of the surpluses to keep the capitalist consumer system working? We’re already seeing signs that in the profits of some of the big box stores the profits are going down. One reason is that the ‘have nothings’ or ’have very little,’ the proletarians, have no purchasing power because of very low wages. Here in the USA, the s

Has the time finally come for the dreams of the International Workers of the World (IWW) for a world workers’ union. For a lot of IWW’s ideas was way ahead of its time. The old IWW wage slaves had nothing or very little money. They were just people who shared the dream of a better life for themselves and their families, and they felt that all wage slaves should belong to one union of the world, J.F. McDaniels wrote. There would be no borders of countries. Just like some unions in the USA. A sheet metal worker can move and work anywhere and his pension and healthcare follows the union member. They have an international union member, but they still must register with the local union. But, still, they can move and follow the jobs. This was part of the IWW’s dream in 1905, when the socialist, anarchists, trade unionist and revolutionaries met to lay the ground work for one big union combining elements of Marxian and Darwinian together. The IWW ideology envisioned a utopian society consist

Inequality means you get screwed. Large gaps in educational achievement and racial divides all make the reduction in inequality difficult. The poorest states in the USA are Montana, Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia and most of these are Red states or considered Republican non-union, but right-to-work states. The Republicans will tell you wage slaves that inequality is desirable. Inequality gives wage slaves the incentive to work harder and invest. But at some point, which is where we are now, the inequality of income and wealth becomes so wide as to harm society. When most all the economic gains go to the top; the wage slaves and everyone aspires to join the top percentage, but they no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going. Moreover with the small number at the top 1 percent making most of the investment decisions the economy will go up and down. Also, with the 1 percent gains more wealth they also gain more political power in a disproportionate amount, whic

What do the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the $15 to $16 an hour have in common? Some of things, I see, are the education of the young activists, who are discovering that their fight has been fought before, and will always have to be fought. The inequality of good wages and standard of living is now wider than in past years. The fight is never ending. It is like the country of Holland fighting the sea to keep it back. They can never rest, and the Dutch accept the fight as a way of life f or the alternative is the end of life as they know it. This is the mentality our young wage slaves must learn in order to survive in the employment world. The fight is a very long and never ending one. When we let up on this fight, we end up where we are today, fighting our way out of the gutters once again. The Occupy movement was just round one and a winner for the wage slaves because it gave people a confidence boost and education, which started a conversation on what is wrong with the USA and the

The widening of the wage inequality worldwide is going to destroy democracy as we know it today and destroy the economy for the economy and democracy go hand-in-hand. If we take out the guts of both, which is the wage slaves, we can lose it all. The wage slaves are the ‘have littles’ and the ‘haves,’ which leaves the one who are at the top, the 1 percent, and the ones at the bottom, the ‘have nothing.’ The 1 percent just sits on their money and the ‘have nothings’ have no money to add to the economy. If we could get more money into the hands of the ‘have littles’ through higher wages, tax breaks, and free healthcare. They, then, would employ the ‘have nothings,’ then the new money and taxes they pay and the funds that are saved from welfare would trickle up to the government and the 1 percent, who could make even more money. The inequality of wages would start to lose, which might just save the consumer economy and democracy. The alternative is what? A plutocracy or a revolution?

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the new enemy of the working class people. The TPP is the oligarchies’ new plan to get even more wealth diverted to them by once again standing on the backs of the wage slaves while taking away all the tools from us, the wage slaves. The TPP is considered worse than North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO). If a union tries to fight back, especially if a union has assets that can be lost in a lawsuit, will fail under the TPP, which will be empowered to sue for obstruction and a monetary settlement if a union strikes. No union will nor should they chance that. TPP is a 12 country group of Pacific Rim countries with more than 200 trade issue “professionals” in the regions represented in TPP, which make up our largest trading partners. The most disturbing aspect of TPP is the three branches of our government, who are responsible for protecting our workers’ rights, have been bribed or silenced. According to its webs

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.” If all of us, the 99 percent, would adhere to this sentiment by Roosevelt we would take away about 90 percent of the anti-workers’ playbook. Whenever the oligarchies want to stop or destroy a movement, program or an idea which would advance the good of the working people, they use fear, such as the everlasting attacks on healthcare, Medicare, and the never-ending battle against Social Security and unions. All of which perpetuates dignity and freedom for the wage slaves. Just think what our lives would be like without these things. We would literally be at the total mercy of the 1 percent. Our young people would not be able to see a future and our wage slaves would soon sink into despair and this would be what the 1 percent would think would be a victory; but in reality it would be a death sentence to capitalism as we know it today. Fear and despair does not motivate people to work harder, study harder or em

How labor could be a big moneymaker for Wall Street by pushing for higher wages, which will put more spendable income in the pockets of the little or have nots. These wage slaves could very well propel the economy to much higher levels by pushing companies to hire more workers to meet the demand of the new middle class, which is much smaller than the original middle class now. But, never the less, it would bring a very large group of wage slaves into a new class with a chance to buy vehicles. If a family has two wage earners at $15 to $16 an hour, it would be $30 to $32 an hour, this with Obamacare (Affordable Care Act), families can provide for their families, plus help the economy, which could be a large boost to Wall Street. This would then be a good opportunity for a new labor movement to add to labor ranks. If Wall Street is smart it should support higher wages or at least keep their hands off the anti-wage slave movement. If the Wall Street people would want to support it could

What is the commonality between the old Nazi Brown Shirts of Germany, the Greek Golden Dawn Party and the USA Tea Party? One is they were funded by the oligarchies; two is they all started out as laughable, but soon became more powerful, more racist and more fascist than anyone thought possible. They are antiunion, against immigrants and will crucify anyone not willing to go along with their agenda. The Greek Golden Dawn traces their roots back to the Metaxas dictatorship in the late 1930s to the Nazi collaboration during the occupation in WWII. Now, it looks like the USA’s Tea Party is starting to use the Brown Shirts and Golden Dawn playbook and even the conservative party of England is getting on the bandwagon. It is the whole oligarchies against the proletarian class. It’s warfare: the money against the workers. The stupid people who think they belong with the rich are just bought and brainwashed. This is where the oligarchies find their troops. If these wannabe rich people woul

The indifference to the plight of others and the cult of self-interest is what the corporate state seeks to instill in us. The state appeals to pleasure as well as fear to crush compassion. But as long as we wage slaves defy those forces we will remain alive to fight for our rights that belong to us. We must fight to retain what we have and what we deserve, and for now this is the only possible way to victory. Remember we must have compassion for all workers worldwide, but we here at home should be setting the standard for how we treat our fellow workers. Even if you have a good job or are retired, don’t think you are safe. Things change and we must be involved and looking into the future. Remember the best defense is a good offense, but empathy must be our primary attribute. If we don’t keep this in mind we could descend into tyranny, which, I think, some would like to see. Tyranny could lead to a revolution and the end to the capacity for human solidarity. What we want is just a reb

For the capitalist, nonunion oligarchies the most feared word is “solidarity.” This is what wins for the wage slaves and it can be distorted when the nonunion capitalists win. Solidarity means when all wage slaves stick together. They have the power to win and when divided they lose, and labor is the biggest offender of solidarity by using the craft unions where they will in one company or plant divide the work into separate crafts and then sign contracts with their employers to not support the other crafts in their company when a different craft within the company has a dispute. Also, the employers manipulate the crafts to have their contracts expire at different times so the work continues on in the plant or company. This was started by some of our famous labor leaders, such as Gompers, Mitchell, Duncan and Tobin. They earned the title of “Labor Vultures,” among the International Workers of the World. These labor leaders existed only by dividing the workers. They inadvertently did t

Why would a company that has work for 100 wage slaves at 40 hours a week hire 200 part-time workers at 20 hours a week? One is to stay away from them getting full-time status. Another reason is to have another trained work force in case half of their workers go on strike for higher wages and benefits. In the days of the 1920s and ‘30s there were companies which provided replacement or strike breaking workers at a price and some of these companies’ owners become very rich and famous, think Papa John’s Pizza. Today this is harder to do so the next best thing is for the Walmarts and low wage fast food companies to have another work force already in house either part time or temporary workers. Wage slaves must keep this in mind when there is the same amount of work and the companies are cutting your hours and if this happening then they are preparing for a strike. So when you see this happening workers should make their move before the replacement workers are trained, which the present wo

In 1905, the International Workers of the World fought for fewer work hours in a week, better wages and safer working conditions. Is it time to lower the work week hours from 40 to, say, 32 hours whenever there are more workers than jobs because of faster tools, new technology or over population? We’ve had to make adjustments before in the labor force, for example child labor laws removed a large segment of the work force beginning the mid-1800s.This opened up jobs for older workers. Another example was the mandated retirement age, but the easiest way is to adjust the work week. This is different from what employers are doing to workers now. Employers are short changing workers with hours, healthcare and income. What I’m advocating is using the system that’s been used before that created jobs, not stifle them. When I worked during the ‘80s, we took four hours off every Friday, it made a huge difference and got a lot of people through the down turn in the economy. This would open up a

Labor needs to take a historical look at the philosophy of the industrial unionism. The fast food low-wage workers should embrace what Big Bill Haywood shouted out at a meeting in 1905 at the Brands Hall in Chicago, “I do not care a snap of my fingers whether or not the skilled workers join the industrial movement at this time. We are going down into the gutter to get at the mass of workers and bring them up to a decent plane of living.” The International Workers of the World (IWW) were way ahead in its philosophy and tactics, such as it viewed a labor/management contract as an interference with labor’s only true weapon: the strike. Contracts were also rejected because they hampered workers from declaring strikes at the most critical times for employers. Most labor contracts have done more harm in the long run than good, such as stopping strikes. Maybe labor should take another look at Fr. Thomas J. Hagerty’s 1905 scheme, considered the most comprehensive scheme of labor organizations

Union leaders must be leaders to the rank and file, not just to the hierarchy of the union. They need to set aside their own personal ambitions, and think of the low-level workers. The workers, who promote the union, are the rank and file and they should know the names of their leaders and their jobs. They should also understand what their jobs represent, and should also know the entire history of their union and the history of the labor movement: those who fought, some to the death, for the rights the GOP are now stripping away today. They should know the good and the bad, and the successes and failures of the union movement and labor history. The wage slaves must stop fighting among themselves and treat all workers as brothers and sisters. The International Workers of the World had it right, the problem was they were ahead of their time in their thinking, and did not have the communication tools we have today. Now, we have the tools to organize the wage slaves of the world, but we

The magic number is $16 an hour and the wage slaves are winning. The 1 percent oligarchies are in a slow walk backward. Also, the governor of the State of California wants to kick the minimum wage to $10 an hour and already some low wage businesses have raised pay toward the magic number. You cannot rely on the government to do the work for you. They would have to vote to raise the minimum wage in order for it to become law, and the lobbyists would spend millions to stop it. So the best way is to just make corporations pay the $15 to $16 an hour and then get the government to make it a minimum wage law. This way the precedence will already be set and you will diminish the effect the lobbyists will have on the politicians, mainly the GOP. If the $16 an hour is obtained by the millions of low-wage workers, which for some workers would more than double their spendable income, the economy would boom. The 1 percent would bring back their money from the Cayman Islands to invest here. One mu

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was put in place to have a system of labor control. The NLRA, at this time, does not help labor. For about 50 years of legal decisions have consistently restricted the rights of workers to take concerted actions when the NLRA rights were violated. Most of the labor disputes were supported not by the laws of the NLRA or the facts of the cases, but, instead, were based on a set of pro-management values and assumptions, which had no basis in actual law. In order to win when we go to court or try to strike and stay within the law, we will have to challenge this pro-management bias, which is a key to reviving trade unions. This does not matter much at this time with retail and fast food workers as they cannot be controlled very much. They can use their free speech and freedom of assembly to get the $15 to $16 an hour minimum wage and to start off protest at places where you don’t work and get them to protest at your place of employment. What can the

The $15 to $16 an hour minimum wage that the low-wage workers are asking for has a lot of positive to it, such as helping to end corporation welfare and these large corporations like Walmart paying below living wages and then the tax payers having to supplement their workers by way of food stamps and Medicaid, school lunches. Usually the cost for a low-wage worker is about $10,000 a year so if the corporations paid a living wage like they should, that corporation welfare money could go toward other things, which would benefit all of the 99 percent, and, of course, better wages would mean more jobs and maybe some families could go back to a one-wage earner per family, which would be good for the children, in some cases. In order to get the win on wages each wage slaves must want it and be willing to make the commitment just like going on a diet, quit smoking, getting sober. Each person must do it and then find others with the same will and tenacity to stay with it until you win. But jus

High fuel costs are actually turning out to help American manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs were sent overseas, but to bring the products back to this country is proving to be very costly due to the high fuel rates and the fact that countries are starting to demand better wages for their workers. These facts are proving too much for the greedy corporatists, and they are starting to move jobs back home. This gives small local businesses the financial incentive to start Made in America companies, which can now label their products made in America or even with a local brand. The consumers seem to support this. So like I have always said, “In all adversity there is a window of opportunity.” But one of the concerns is the trained workers needed to make the products or maintain the higher technical equipment. We have had the state controlled apprenticeships programs for years through the unions. You know the programs that the anti-union GOP has been destroying for the last sixty years. Now

Will the Dream of Debs, written by Jack London, ever come true? I think that it could happen or some version of it will occur. The dream was the Holy Grail of labor, which is a general strike over all of the United State. Step one was that labor stock pile enough food and necessities to outlast the 1 percent; sort of like what the Mormons teach their followers to do: stock pile food for a year. Then the union members have to save enough money to pay their bills for when union go on strike. In the past, strikes were usually lost because members ran out of food and money. The unions would have to be self-sufficient to shut down everything at once or to do a rolling strike planned to take place at different places to stay ahead of the corporations trying to neutralize the efforts of the strike, such as tying up the docks. Then tying up the trucks, shutting off the fuel at the refineries, followed by the railroads and power plants, and with the communication we have today, this could be a

The Tooth Fairy recipients will get a 23 percent increase in payouts for each tooth, which is now worth $5 a piece, and some people are thinking fast-food or low-wage workers should work for minimum wage. In some states, low earners are getting just a little above what a kid gets for a tooth. Now the owners and bosses should be the only tight asses against the $15 to $16 living wage, but I am appalled at the stupidity of some low-wage workers, who think the $15 to $16 an hour would be too much. You would think these ignorant people owned the companies. The naysayers don’t understand that the world is made up of the 99 percent and the 1 percent, and they sure as hell are not, or probably will never be, the 1 percent. The 1 percent does not need any help fighting to keep the minimum wage as it is. In fact, they would like to have it lower or none at all where you become a true wage slave. The only reason I can think of for why a ‘have very little’ would not want a $15 to $16 wage is if

Economics 101 and the bullshit of the austerity: the only people who have benefitted from austerity are the 1 percent by having their jobs safe, their investments continued growing and their taxes were kept low. Do you really think this is the way to keep the economy growing? If yes, you’d be wrong. The longer the austerity last, the less money there is in the pockets of the 99 percent who are most likely to spend the money. There are other players in the game of economics, which is just like the game of Monopoly? The game does not get started until all the players have money, but as the game goes on someone will end up with all the money, the 1 percent. Then the game is over, just like an economy that becomes stagnant. To start a new game you must do what? Yes, put the money back in the hands of the players. One way we should have done this was to take advantage of a once in a generation opportunity to repair roads, bridges, air ports, water lines, electrical grids, gas piping and t

Labor fights that were lost or won have always been decided by public opinion, even though there was contributing events, such as the National Guard, law enforcement, and court orders. Public opinion is a largest factor for without public support the elected politicians will not support you whether it’s local government (cities and counties), states, or even federal, for their life is controlled by public opinion, and, of course, lobbyists money, but in the end it still is public opinion that matters. So when labor starts a campaign, it must first test the waters, then plan from there. At this time, the $15 to $16 per hour minimum wage is enjoying very good public opinion ratings, but it needs to be pushed to at least 70 percent of the favorable rankings and made to hold at that rate, which will take money to advertise the benefits and explain about the corporations, that are supporting or leaning in favor of this increase in the minimum wage for all wage slaves in the low-wage indust

The $15 to $16 an hour minimum wage fight must have a large outreach of community-based support and education of the public in the overall good that will come from higher wages for the lower wage workers. There are 46 million people in this country living in poverty. Between 2009 and 2011, all the new income generated in this country went to the top 1 percent making the income inequality in this country greater than in any other developed country. It looks like some of the corporations are starting to see the benefits of more money in the pockets of our wage slaves will help not only the workers, but will mean more profits for the corporation. It will not mean fewer jobs, but not more jobs to keep up with the customer demands for the food industry and manufacturers. I think the corporations are really starting to see the benefits of paying a good living wage and benefits. Some of these corporations are Costco, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Raley’s, among others. They see that one of the ways

It is very hard to educate and organize at the same time as workers are working 12-hour days seven days a week. You have to work your organizing and protesting in sync with education. Workers must have the knowledge of worker history so they have confidence in what they believe. I once was told by a human resource manager at Point Magu Navy base that the reason labor loses in negotiations is that human resource people know more about labor history than the workers, which is why I study labor history. The Art of War tells us that to win you must know yourself (labor history) and know your enemy. If you only know one of these you will only win about half of your fights, but if you know both yourself and your enemy, you have a better chance of winning all your fights. Also, labor must have a good knowledge of how the capitalist system works for you and fighting for better wages you must understand economics. You can split out the truth and the bullshit and it is not rocket science to lear

The idea that workers had rights in their workplaces equal to or exceeded the rights of management motivated union activity during the 1930s. According to historian Sidney Fine, during the sit-down strike at Flint, Michigan, in 1937, the United Auto Workers contended that the strike was legal because the workers enjoyed a property right in his/her job; and in striking, was therefore protecting his private property—his/her right to a job. The property right of the workers in their job, it was alleged, was superior to the right of the company to use its property as it saw fit since the workers had invested their lives in the company/plant only invested their money. Remember, it is labor that creates wealth and jobs. Money can do nothing without humans and this is where the power and this is where the power is found. Just look at the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution known as the Glorious Labor Amendment, which gives workers the right to strike to improve wages, working conditions,

The fight for minimum wage shows the GOP is using Hitler’s playbook of 1933 against workers is in the legislation introduced and supported by 36 senators led by Tom Coburn and Rand Paul. This bill would make it virtually impossible for Congress to enact any legislation intended to improve working conditions or regulate the work place, such as a federal minimum wage, eliminate the National Labor Relations Board laws, overtime pay, and discrimination laws. They could, under the Roberts’ U.S. Supreme Court, roll back existing protections for workers, such as Medicare and the 1918 Child Labor laws. But, as I see it, this is about the push for a $15 an hour wage for our low-income workers so our wage slaves should also be looking at what the cities, counties and states can do to make the minimum wage increase a reality. These government entities do have the authority to set a minimum wage for their people and most federal laws start with what people in the cities, counties and state gover

There is hope for the wage slaves and it is coming from the low-wage workers, who have very little. These are the people who will raise the ship of wages and produce jobs. For they will force the oligarchies and corporations, who are sitting on trillions of dollars either in the U.S. or in offshore bank accounts to pay their workers a living wage. These greedy elitists should be made to stop receiving corporate welfare, which is when the 99 percent pays taxes to support their en slavers while workers are trying to live on minimum wage or part-time work. The workers must be supplemented by at least by at least $8 to $10 per hour just to survive so when we (not me) shop at Walmart and think we are getting a good deal on something made in China you’re not. For you are helping Walmart pay its workers through your taxes, which could be used for something benefitting our country and not billionaires because the states, counties and cities have to make up the difference of low wages in food

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers’ salaries and take away their rights to strike.” Adolph Hitler, May 2, 1933 This is happening today and gives proof that the antiunion corporations and oligarchies are using Hitler’s playbook of 1933 in 2013; and how did Hitler’s efforts against the workers work out for the German people of 1933? We know that the backbone of a capitalist consumers’ system is the wage slaves, but they must have good wages to support their families and healthcare to keep their human machines working and productive for a day of lost wages is also a day of lost production for the corporations. When they have lost the means to be productive, there must be a pension. Basically, what I’m politely saying is that the people screwing the workers are screwing themselves. If there are a lot of the old retired wage slaves around, they can still be productive in volunteer things, such as volunteer at a fire c

A common practice by corporate greed is to have the minimum wage worker help pay for the bonuses a lot of corporation executives receive, unknown by the common man or woman. It is called the dead peasant life insurance policies, which a lot of companies take out on their employees without the employees knowing they do this. So a minimum wage employee making $15 thousand to $18 thousand a year would be worth $1 million to the corporation if they die. Walmart is famous for this. Is the corporation you work for doing this? It would be good if the wage slaves made $15 to $16 an hour as a minimum wage so they could buy life insurance for their families. This is just one more reason that the wage slaves must take back their commons and workplace and until we do this, this is the way we will be treated—just like slaves—worth more dead than alive. So now you can see why the large corporations do not want health insurance or Obamacare. The prerequisite for an ideology is the possession of a

The strike or temporary walkout: why workers fear doing it and how to alleviate their fear. One way to picket a fast food or any low wage place is to recruit people from like-minded businesses. This way it is hard for owners to retaliate against workers asking for a $15 an hour minimum wage. So, workers at Burger King can picket a McDonald, and then the workers of McDonalds picket at Burger King. Another thing is to find out what other organizations would support increasing minimum wage to a $15 an hour and trade off might be just the exposure of their membership, such as faith-based work centers. You can leverage your manpower to help each other to see that there is no retaliation. This is not a new strategy. These are time-tested tactics used by the Knights of Labor in the 1880 and the International Workers of the World. The tactics were used to gain freedom of assembly and speech. These tactics will get around the outlawing of solidarity of workers that the National Labor Relations

Most all labor laws that were passed to enhance labor are now a deterrent to labor, such as the National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, no strike contracts, successorship laws, and arbitration. These were the laws that were supposed to help labor, which have now been gutted. Then there were the anti-labor laws and amendments, such as Taft-Hartley Act, which labor referred to the Slave Labor Act, and MacKay Doctrine (MacKay Radio Decision),. Most all labor laws passed for labor or against labor was about the worker being able to strike. In 1947, 230 bills were introduced in Congress and state legislatures all to gut labor and to curb union power. Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act in 1959 prohibited hot cargo agreements, where union workers would not handle nonunion goods for solidarity strikes, which benefitted industry-wide strikes, which far exceed a strike on just one company. The law unions’ fear most is the provision that authorizes law suits against un

If the USA is a consumer economy, then there must be good wages paid to the consumers to drive the economy. The business community thinks they have the right to pay anything they wants in wages, but what they don’t want to consider is that their businesses is not totally theirs if in order to conduct their business they use the commons (e.g. roads), which is paid for by all the U.S. people who actually pay their taxes or at least subsidized by the people like the railroads and post office, law enforcement, schools, bank regulators, Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration, to name a few. Without most of these things there would be no way to have or conduct a business. The taxes to support our schools that train the workers in math and English the companies then hire. Without good wages as the base pay it must be very solid or the consumer economy will crumble and with it the whole system. The more we make the more we spend and the more we must produce, which is

The leaderless world revolution and the armies are all around us just waiting for a trigger or tipping point to march and they are all leaders so how are they controlled? It looks, to me, like they have taken a look at history and have written a play book that has taken old tactics that worked and came up with new ones and with that they have added and use our new technology. What we are seeing is it is very hard to kill the snake when you cannot find its head. Brazil is a good example of a tipping point, upping the cost of public transportation that millions of low wage workers would have to pay and then humiliating one person by pepper spraying her in the face for no reason other than they think they can and get away with it. I wonder what the cops were thinking when they were pushed into the ocean up to their waists—power to the people. This is just the start of the Have All against the Have Some and Have Nots. For us, wage slaves, have a right to have a say and a right to an equa

Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. So all law abiding people have an even chance for justice and if usually starts with judges of the court, which should not be obliged to anyone other than Lady Justice and the money to elect judges should be public money not corporation money from oligarchies bent on controlling the country. When the moneyed 1 percent starts funding the election of our judges then Lady Justice will no longer be blind and she will see the large piles of money to be made or put toward elections. The 99 percent wage slaves are in for a losing fight for their share of the economic pie. The oligarchies can just buy the whole damn pie by electing the judges, who will uphold the claims of the 1 percent every time and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) will keep helping the state governors pass laws, which will be upheld by the 1percents’ judges. If this is what is happening, it will only leave the wage slaves and the ‘have nothings’ with only one way to fight an

It is past time for all unions and want-to-be unions to quit shooting each other in the foot. All we have to do is look back in history and see what we did wrong and what our leaders at that time did some of which still haunt us to this day. For example, one of the leaders was George Meany, head of the AFL/CIO at the time, gained control over the unions. Looking back we should have embraced Walter Reuther of the UAW. Reuther saw that we had to bring all wage slaves up to a living standard whether or not they were unionized, and we workers had a good chance with Eugene McCarthy when he ran for president. McCarthy was pro union, more than any other candidate except for maybe Roosevelt. But the unions decided to support the GOP. How did this work out for us? Hell, we even had labor unions vote for Ronald Reagan and then Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union's contract even after they voted and spent money on his election. Still the unions have not learned for the postal work

It is past time to shut off the money tap to the Democratic National Committee and also bring in our foot soldiers for the people we are helping to elect are giving us nothing in return. In fact, they are supporting the antiunion people by just doing nothing while our rights are expiring. You hear nothing about the loss of our National Labor Relations Board. The Democrats are now calling themselves “Centrists” (Blue Dogs) and as they chase the GOP, the GOP moves further to the extreme right then our Democrats move more toward the center right. Now is the time to draw a new line and it needs to be brought back to the early ‘90s at least and restore all the rights that we wage slaves have lost since then. We cannot keep throwing our money and manpower into the blackhole that we are digging. We must stop digging and start over with new or old tactics that have worked or will work. Our membership is falling fast and with that money in which to support us and fight. This money must be spen

During the years of 1905-1908, IWW’s Big Bill Haywood wanted to organize the forgotten unskilled workers (think fast food workers of today), those without votes – without unions. Haywood once said at a meeting, “I do not care a snap of my fingers whether or not skilled workers join the IWW movement at this time.” He shouted at the meeting, “We are going down into the gutters to get at the mass of workers and bring them up to a decent plane of living (think minimum wage $15 to $16 per hour). It is these ‘have nothings’ who will be the shock troops of labor who will establish the first beach head in the resistance of the entrenched industry so that later labor organizations can win what is rightfully theirs for the masses. Eugene Debs, labor leader, said the industrial workers are organized not conciliate, but to fight the 1% oligarchy class. The oligarchies own the tools they do not use. The workers use the tools they do not own. So you can see there is power with the wage slaves. They