Why doesn’t President Obama have a labor secretary like Frances Perkins in his Cabinet? Perkins was the first female Cabinet member under President Franklin Roosevelt, and there has never been a better labor secretary since. If the Obama administration does not start working for labor, then why will labor work for them, the Democrats, then why should labor spend its money on federal elections?
At this time the trend seems to be spending and working on carpeting the state legislation and government offices. This is working well for the GOP, and the labor people are seeing the results, which is detrimental to union labor. By working the states it can be more grassroots, which can more easily show our dues paying members results in their towns where the jobs are and could result in more union jobs and dues paying members. With this success then it could be transferred to the federal level of government.
Frances Perkins understood what the working wage slaves needed, which was federal labor laws. Laws that helped labor organizing for a better life. Now we do not need another election, we won and all we need now is another Frances Perkins to get us card check and tighten up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules, which have been shot full of holes and do not work for labor in this day and age. We need a prompt and honest hard debate about what is happening to our wage slaves working men and women.
Looking at our NLRB rules will begin the debate. All we need is the will from the Obama administration. Hell, Washington, D.C., loves hearings so why not this one? Now is the time to put the plight of the working people on the open stage where all can see and hear what has happened to wages and the trend toward part-time worker, which deprives wage slaves of benefits, health insurance and pensions.
If we do not address this soon we could be looking at another Jan. 13, 1874, when in New York City’s Tompkins Square when workers were told to attend a meeting, but, instead, were lied to and beaten.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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