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Inequality Sinking the Economy

Money is the fuel of the capitalist system, but if money is loaded into a boat and most of it is loaded to one side, the boat will capsize and sink. For the boat to float the money must be at least a little evenly spread out just to keep it afloat and if it does not even out then the boat will list to one side and just go in circles. Wage inequality is a perfect example of a listing boating ready to sink the economy. Wage inequality promotes austerity that sinks the boat even quicker. The $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage along with a free education to the bachelor’s level could rectify and keep the capitalist system afloat. If this would come about we then could start training our workers like our union construction trades have done. Each trade has their own four-to-five-year apprenticeship training programs. Then they become a journeyman worker, such as sheet metal, plumber, carpenters, iron workers, electricians, heavy equipment and construction, among others. This should start in hig

Alaska's Example

The citizens fighting for fair compensation of the use of their commons should look at Alaska. The Alaskans consider their dividends from their commons their rightful share of the state’s natural wealth. They do not see it as a redistribution of wealth or as welfare. There is no stigma attached to the payments of $1,000 to more than $3,000 to all Alaskan residents including children. Why is this not done in the rest of the U.S.? This type of money is what is needed to continually pump up consumer demand for the middle out, which can be spent immediately. Dividends gained from common wealth bypasses the tug of war between advocates of smaller and larger government. They require no new taxes or government programs. Once set up they are purely market based and because they send legitimate property income to everyone they can’t be derided as welfare. The payments could be set up by the Social Security Administration. There are many ways and things that must happen to save the world and our

Another Attack to Be Aware

How the nonunion, Rand Paul supportering groups and the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heritage Foundation and a newly former nonprofit, Protect My PayCheck, are working together to influence local governments at the city and county levels the same way it was done by state legislatures with Right to Work. Today in Kentucky, Fulton, Simpson and Warren counties, have voted to implement the Right to Work laws. This could be the way California workers could be beaten and see our unions destroyed. Supporters of the these worker-harmful laws say, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are next and that Protect My PayCheck is promising to pay for the legal battles of any local government that tries to implement this legislation. There are numerous counties in California that have bought into the "State of Jefferson" mentality thinking they could control their own local governments, but this short-sighted vision doesn't take into account how to fund their independence an

Sold Out by Government

The workers of the U.S. and the world are fighting, but steadily losing the fight. We now have no help from any type of government. The government and its elected officials are bought and paid for by Wall Street, Big Banks, corporations and the 1 percent. Neither party in the U.S. will now help the workers or unions. The unions are now seen as impotent in the eyes of the GOP and now a large part of the Democrats. With the loss of members comes the loss of money, which makes the unions irrelevant. At this time, the way things are going it is looking like the only thing left for the wage slaves of the U.S. and the rest of world is the streets with pitchforks. Art of War says you should never push your enemy into a corner with no option but to fight to the death. This is what is being done worldwide, in places like Ukraine, Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, Mexico, South American countries and even in Canada. Maybe this is what the wage slaves needed to get motivated, to awake them to the fact t

Local is Where the Power Is

City councils are where the power truly is found. The city councils and mayors are who will solve the problems that we face. These people cannot afford to be ideologues. Their job is to pick up garbage, keep hospitals open, to ensure fire and safety services are available, and that law enforcement and teachers do their jobs. How many times have you or even heard a person say, “If I just was in charge things would be better.” Well, local governments, such as school boards, water districts, fire boards, city councils and county board of supervisors are as close as the average proletarians can get to being in charge or at least at the decision-making table when decisions are made that affect your life, your family’s life and that of the community you live in. Also the higher up one goes in government the slower things happen and the more money it takes to get elected. This is where ideologues take over and the nation stalls and nothing gets done that is worthwhile. A city can raise its mi

Stick Together

As the strikes continue to catch on as a means to gain better wages and working conditions, it’s important to keep history, lessons learned and prior efforts in mind so as not to repeat them. Strikes have worked best when all workers sit down or walk out at once. Strikes are lost when just part of the work force leaves and the rest keeps working. In the construction trade this is called being covered up by other trades, which makes the trade out on strike in a disadvantage when workers go back, such as T-bar ceilings have been put up before the electrical, plumbing, fire sprinklers or air conditioning ducts have been put in this situation. This is the disadvantage of crafts unions who have different contracts that end at different times. Unions and workers must change the rules to where all workers can support each other. The new minimum wage fast food, box stores and restaurant workers should not fall into the trap pf setting up their craft-specific union, like the trade unions fell f

Koch's New Party, i360, is Coming After You

Wage slaves need to understand that they will never be invited to the oligarchies’ country clubs unless it as lawn maintenance or to serve them food and wash their dishes while being paid minimum wage. So why is it that some union workers, who have pensions, steady-good-paying jobs and healthcare, they lean toward GOP candidates or Blue Dog Democrats? It never works out for them to vote for these types of candidates, just look at the postal workers. Some of these American Postal Workers Union employees voted GOP and donated money to Congressman Darrel Issa, who returned the favor by doing everything he can to shut down the postal service and privatize it—all to bust the union. Remember the air traffic controllers? They were once unionized and supported Ronald Reagan for president and we all know how that turned out. What proletarians have to remember is that the GOP and Blue Dogs Democrats are not our friends and never will be and they should never be trusted. This is a class war that

Come Together to Win

The growing pauperization of our country can be stopped by declaring war on pauperization, which could and should be led by unions with labor councils’ support. If labor begins its work at the bottom of the wage level where there are no unions or labor contracts to have to adhere to, it would pretty much give us a free hand and all is fair in love and war. Maybe with the unrest produced by bad law enforcement practices and the unfairness towards the underserved, which causes adversity, there is a window of opportunity for labor to lend support toward bettering the lives of the people who are suffering from inequality. Labor could help in local elections, fight for higher wages, universal healthcare, jobs and better education opportunities. It is a lot easier to change a local city or county than the federal laws. People are already in the streets so why not help each other and if we can slow or stop inequality. We could change things for the better for all. An example of this is the

As Ukraine Goes so Goes the World

In the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty are we seeing the handprint of the U.S. oligarchies? Are the U.S. oligarchies pushing the Ukraine government to slash mining jobs by selling off or shutting down state owned mines, cutting social benefits and carrying out other austerity measures to shore up profits for the capitalists and meet loan conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund? Despite the fact that austerity has been proven time and again that it does not work. Once again, the toilers at the bottom are the ones to take the hit and the fight even carries over to the wage slaves in Russia where U.S. sanctions are squeezing food prices; meat and poultry prices have skyrocketed by 17 percent. It is just like all wars where the wage slaves are the ones who give their lives for the oligarchies of the world. This is where unions must be strong. It is the only hope for the families of the Ukrainian and Russian poor. These fights are worldwide, such as with the Kurds, Turkey, Gr

Trade Unions' Example

The best unions for workers are the way trade unions are set up. They are an in-house organization. They have their own pension plans, which they control. They have their own healthcare plan. They set their wages. They do their own training, such as apprenticeship programs. They set their retirement ages; in short, they provide the labor for a price, which covers everything. The contractor pays a set price per hour for a tradesman and when the work is done the worker goes back the union hall to be put on the out of work list until the next job. If the union man or woman moves their pension follows them. The other types of union are governmental: federal, state, city, special district, corporations, businesses schools. These unions just have people who negotiate on their behalf for benefits and wages, but pensions and healthcare are paid for by the agency and employees, and not paid by the unions so the workers’ do not have much control. In cases of corporations selling out to another

Joe Hill's Passive Sabotage

Joe Hill wrote in 1914 about how to make work for the unemployed, which was about, “How to use new ways and tactics of carrying on the class struggle to emancipate the workers from wage slavery. The best way to strike is to strike on the job. First, present your needs or demands to the bosses. If they should refuse to grant them, don’t walk out and give the scabs a chance to take your place. “No, just go back to work as though nothing had happened and a new method of warfare, which is to slow down things [like accidently unplugging a refrigerator or copier, its passive sabotage] every way possible as not to give the bosses a good reason to fire you, and when things begin to happen be careful not to fix blame on any certain individual unless that individual is an undesirable from a working class point of view. “The bosses will soon find the cheapest way out of it (the slowdown) is to grant your demands. This is not a mere threat; it has been successfully tried more than once. Striking o

History of the AFL/CIO

There is a consensus in the U.S. and worldwide that the labor movement is dying, but to understand how to turn it around, we must understand why, when, who and what. Labor at one time had the momentum and was winning so why is labor at 7 percent today and with 24 states now right to work for less laws that sap union treasures by allowing workers to benefit from union contracts without paying dues. Why do union members belong to the GOP or vote GOP? One reason is that union head of families, fathers and mothers, have not taught their children the importance of unions. They had all the benefits of a union: healthcare, good pay, weekends and holidays off, and money for a good education, but was never taught how or where this all came from, not at home, not in the schools and not even at the union meetings. Who is to blame? It is the unions and the unions’ members not teaching it at home, and throw in apathy and anti-union laws, and some Blue Dog Democrats who did not support unions and w

Information Center Working

The wage slaves who are fighting for unions to better their lives, such as ending inequality, new contracts, benefits, end of outsourcing, firing workers for striking, and being locked out of a work place, also fighting for safer working conditions. They now have a place to get their word out and a place to compare notes on strategy and tactics. This has been offered by Maggie Trowe, who writes a column for the Militant newspaper, which every working toiler should have access to. Trowe will help you with your struggles with bosses. Contact her at 306 W. 37th St. 13th Floor, New York, New York 10018 or 212-244-4899 or the Militant@mac.com. It would be very helpful if all union members and nonunion people would subscribe to the Militant. This week the newspaper is talking about the Los Angeles, California, area grocery workers; farm workers fighting union busting in the U.S.; garment workers in Bangladesh; movers in Illinois in the U.S. strike for first contract; phone workers in New En

The Time Is Now, Mr. President

It’s time for payback. Now is the time for President Obama to repay the wage slaves for the money and support given to him when he ran for election and re-election. All the unions were asking was just the tools to work with, such as card check. For the federal contract workers at the U.S. Capital and other high profile locations in Washington, like the parks, museum and zoo workers, have the right to fight for collective bargaining rights and to obtain higher wages. President Obama should use his executive power for a higher minimum wage than $10.10 an hour, more like $15 to $18 an hour. Also, the President should change the classification of Federal employees who fight wildland fire to wildland firefighters with the pay that is fitting, such as California Department of Forestry firefighters receive. Then the President should make good on his promise to the people who have come here for work or a better, safer life, and quit deporting them and splitting up their families. These people

A Place for All: Countering the Information War

Unions must show what they can do for their membership at this time—not what they have done before. People have a short memory. You are always judged by your last win or loss and unions cannot at this time survive on past laurels. Should labor at the AFL open the ranks, sort of like the old Minneapolis Teamsters Local 74, like a worker assistance program where you ask the workers to pay a small amount each month to belong? In return they would receive information on which labor union needs workers or apprentices, provide news on labor rights, such as federal and state laws, maybe even an electronic labor newspaper and an Internet resource center for information. The non-union workers would have support in their working place protests such as people, law advice, and maybe even representation by an attorney. This would be a wage slaves’ club for all non-union workers who would like to make their lives better. In the old days, this type of organization even offered cheap life insurance

Get Our Shit Together to Fight

We need to get our shit together, and unless we are together we will continue to be stomped on by the 1 percent. One way to get our act together is organize our efforts to keep track of what the different organizations are doing, a clearing house of sorts. The workers of the world must expand and reinforce the war on inequality. The workers must carve out some of the cash that the oligarchies and corporations are hording. The wage slaves of the low wage jobs will have to force wage hikes by strikes, walkouts and withholding their labor. If you are making minimum wage, you probably can’t fill up a gas tank even at $3 a gallon, the average tank would be about $54—about a day’s work. So, minimum wage workers walkout will hurt the fast food, Walmart corporations’ executive officers more than you for you need the money, they worship money and they have to report to stockholders, which can get them fired. You just missed a day of work, or didn’t have work the day of the walkout, but their

To the Streets

The right wing governments of the world are pushing the wage slaves from the ballot box to the streets because the oligarchies have bought the ballot box. This forces the toilers to go to the streets to protest the wrongs of the right wing governments, like in Belgium, Brussels, where 100,000 workers had to take to the streets to demonstrate against planned reforms against public transport, schools, post office and other services. The government wants to cut staffing, services along with companies across the country. This is worldwide and here in the USA workers will be even more under assault by the right wing GOP for they now control 27 states, which will finish devastating the unions, and the oligarchies own the ballot boxes here also and the courts. So all that is left is the streets, which will probably be closed soon by Sedition Laws being passed by cities, counties and states, such as what was done in Ferguson, Missouri, where protestors were not able to stop walking, standing

Samuel Gompers: What We Want

“The wage slaves need more,” said the great labor leader Samuel Gompers. “What does labor want? We want more—school houses and less jails, more books and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge—in fact, more opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, and womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.” He was ahead of his time. He went on to say, “What do labor, community justice advocates and environmentalists want today? We want less inequality and more dignified work that contribute to the greater good and is safe from toxins and hazards. We want the material basis of economic prosperity and the ecological bounty required to thrive—clean water and air, fertile soil and wholesome food. We want our children to flourish, their bodies to grow strong and healthy, with full voices and laughter. We want our elders to be honored and treasured. We want vibrant communities of art, creativity, song and learning. We

NLRB Doesn't Work

Organizers of unions must look at new ways to organize new members for nothing stays the same and trying to do and use the same methods that no longer work is the definition of insanity. Organizers have depended on the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) laws to give workers the right to unionize and protect then, but using the NLRB as a fortress to protest will not work today. In any fortress there will sooner or later be destroyed either by being overrun or by just poking holes into it and making it no longer defensible without upgrades, like new, stronger laws. The NLRB is dying so organizers must change their tactics. The SEIU, between 1995 and 1999, unionized 74,000 home healthcare workers in Los Angeles. The labor movement will be in low wage employees working toward $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage plus benefits. The once powerful trade and industrial labor unions, which built the middle class, are no longer able to protect the interests of the American workers and this also is

Black Friday Protests Planned

Stand with Walmart workers this BLACK FRIDAY! All across the country the UFCW and Walmart employees are scheduling Black Friday protests to bring attention to the unfair and inhumane treatment Walmart workers receive from this company. Walmart rakes in more than $16 billion in annual profits yet the most of its workers earn less than $25,000 a year, forcing them to either work more jobs or to receive government assistance. The dream of a national strike or protest about wages and workers’ rights, like France and other countries do, has always been thought of as impossible here in the U.S. Now with large mass corporations like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King, which are all across the U.S., it’s now feasible to have a national protests on the Black Friday. So far this year at least 27 Walmarts across the U.S. are scheduled to have Black Friday protests and we can only hope there will be more at other corporations that are exposed for paying slave wag

Bolivia, an Example to Follow

When losing the war, the opposition takes advantage of the latest scare tactic, anything from ISIS to Ebola, to change the focus of the debate and hope the public will just fade away and lose interest. The media, if it weren’t owned by the same few corporations, would keep the focus on by labeling the topics as unfinished business, just like it is done on a business agenda for meetings. Agendas always separate the items by discussion and action items, and ends with unfinished business. Unfinished business can be tabled to the next meeting or the next day. At this time, the most feared movement, which puts terror in the hearts of the 1 percent, is the war on inequality. The 1 percent hopes the subject of inequality will lose its steam by forcing the public to focus on storms, killings, stock market, election polls, and anything else. So the wage slaves must always find a way to refocus the debate back to the fight for a minimum wage of $15 to $18 an hour. It’s like making a snowball ro

Inequality: Worldwide Scourge

Inequality is the scourge of the U.S. and the world. Just ask French economist Thomas Piketty, or U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen or many intelligent business leaders, and they will tell you that inequality is at its highest in a hundred years. Inequality is the Ebola of the capitalist system, which bleeds out the 99 percent so the 1 percent can continue to make its obscene profits. Just like Ebola, the capitalist system and its inequality is spreading worldwide and it is or will affect everyone if not stopped. When the proletarians have no money to buy the services and goods that the wage slaves produce then the unemployment grows, which puts a larger burden on government. The government has less money because there are fewer taxpayers at every level. Inequality is a black hole, which will get deeper and larger until it sucks all and everyone into it bringing along with it frustrations, fear and uncertainty, and this is where the breeding grounds are created for the groups li

1 Percent Decides What's Mainstream

Workers have the right in a capitalist system to make money and better their lives and the lifestyles of their families. But if working for wages or owning a business, which makes money, there comes with it a responsibility of how it is used or spent. It should not be used to destroy, it should be used to build and enhance the community and living standards for all, and this will not happen if the 1 percent just sits on their cash or worse yet, hides it to not pay their share for using our commons. The most important fact to appreciate is that the concentrated wealth translates into concentrated political power. The remedies that could reverse the increasing inequality are outside the mainstream politics today because the wealthy 1 percent gets to define what’s mainstream. This is why we need a wage hike of at least $15 to $18 an hour, more full-time jobs with benefits, such as healthcare, pensions, and free education for all. There are comparisons to draw from, such as Denmark or Fin

Worldwide Command Center Needed

Why do the wage slaves of the world continue to stand still for the way corporations like WalMart treat their workers? When they pay “starvation wages,” work their employees part time to keep from paying benefits and now cutting part-time workers’ health coverage. This latest move affects 30,000 employees or about 5 percent of their workers. This follows on the decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to completely eliminate health benefits for part-time workers, which also pay “starvation wages.” These corporations could not stay in business without the work of the Have Nots, Have Littles and Have Nothing. As long as we shop at these businesses they have no reason to change their business practices of screwing over the lowly workers. Instead, they’re letting the public, the Have Littles and the Not Have Much foot the bill for the low-wage workers to receive food stamps and other government assistance that the workers wouldn’t need if they were paid a living wage. When we subsidize

Worldwide Update

The young people have started to join up with what is left of the old toilers. The young will be a formidable force for they have nothing to lose in this fight and everything to again. Look at Hong Kong where the young man, Joshua Wong, who started planning the current protest when he was just 15 years old and in two years of planning, put the protest in motion. He now, at age 17, is the same age that most governments like their soldiers to be because most young people this age think they are invincible. These are or can be the shock troops of the non-violent civil disobedience way to win the 99 percent over the 1 percent war. Now we just have to wait and hope for women equal to or better than Joshua Wong, who is leading the protest in Hong Kong, and hope that his arrest is just temporary, and if not then have them step up to the challenge and keep fighting. The toilers of the world are indeed on the march worldwide. There were hundreds of thousands marching in New York, USA, against

Assault on Nova Scotia & Colorado/Free Joshua Wong

Nova Scotia’s Bill 1 is an anti-democratic and union busting bill. It is a concerted attack on healthcare workers. This is on the heels of Bill 37, passed in April, striped 40,000 healthcare workers of their right to strike. The attacks on our wage slaves are never ending and they are worldwide and here in the USA. For example, at Cablevision, which hates unions, management fired a worker of 11 years with the company who was trying to form a union. This worker joined 22 others who were illegal fired for working to form a union. Also the people of Hong Kong are still in the streets, but how long before China cracks down on them? One of the protesters leaders is a courageous 17-year-old man, Joshua Wong. He knows he’s fighting for his and other young people’s futures and it’s an all or nothing situation at this point. He is the hope for the younger generation. He has been arrested, and we must all keep him in our thoughts and pressure the government to release him. World Day for Decent

Hong Kong Using History's Lessons

There is hope for the toilers and soon to be toilers recently a mother of a 12-year-old young lady asked how to find to my blog. Her concerns were that there is no honest history books about labor and how we how we have gotten to where we are today. They do not trust our school history books to tell the whole story. This is good for to understand history one must realize that history books at their best is just a person’s view of what happened at a given time and if you have a hundred people viewing at once you get a hundred different views. So, for any given event one must look at as many views as possibly to understand what has taken place and maybe not to do the same thing or if it had a good outcome, try it again. This is why knowing your history is so important and why we need to know it. Not knowing our history can work against us if we are blind when studying history. Maybe there will be a 12-year-old person who will use history and the lessons learned to do well for the 99 pe

Protest & Take Your Kids

The best vacation a working slave could go on is a protest for higher wages or a protest for the right to form a union. Consider it an educational vacation that a toiler can take their families and friends on and save money while increasing your chances of gaining more. The fight for workers’ rights and a living wage is worldwide. Some of the protests are against JetBlue fast food places, day laborers, postal workers, rail workers, teachers, nurses, car dealerships, in-home helpers, and lamp factory workers. These are just a few areas in the U.S., but Canada there is a teachers’ strike on wages and class size. In China, Apple parts plants are on strike; North London care workers are on strike regarding pay cuts; and then we have construction workers striking in Turkey. The death of ten construction workers is a result of profit driven greed and a disregard for worker safety while the toilers are still dealing with Ukraine and Russia, Poland. So if workers would like to do something goo

Lies on Service Industry Wages

The position of the service industry on wages is that tips are a built-in part of the workers’ wages. This analogy is used by Marriott and other hotel/motel chains, plus fast food chains, and restaurants. These are huge and very profitable corporations so how did these corporations convince their customers that they should be subsidizing their workers? There is nothing wrong with giving a little extra for good service whether at a restaurant or hotel, but these workers should be paid a living wage and not be dependent upon tips because there are people out there who don’t tip or tip so little, like the 20 cents an NFL football player left recently, that the worker is being screwed over twice. It is not the tipper’s responsibility to ensure the workers receive a decent wage, it is the employer’s. The corporations should not be left off the hook by trying to make or guilt their customers into picking up the tab, like Marriott is doing. It is leaving envelops in the room of paying custom

War on Poverty

Fifty-five years ago President Johnson declared his war on poverty. At this time there are 47 million Americans living beneath the poverty level. Does that number sound familiar, think Mitt Romney and his infamous talk with some of the 1 percent during his failed campaign for president. Billionaire Warren Buffet said there is a class warfare all right, but it’s my class that is winning. He is calling for higher taxes on the rich and the money to be spent on our crumbling infrastructure, free education, and higher wages. The tax on the rich under Johnson was 91 percent. It is now 39.6 percent for those who pay, but most of the rich pay nothing, in fact. There are many corporations that the poor end up paying for their subsidies and who do you think makes up the difference in these tax rate that is less than half of what it used to be? We also voted in GOP people who retooled our war on poverty to a cynical war on crime and privatized a lot of our prisons. The term criminal came to mean

Capitalist System Rigged Against Toilers

Why it is so hard for the toilers to understand that capitalist system and that it is rigged against them? The system is rigged in favor of the 1 percent. Even small business owners don’t understand this. This is not to say that the toilers cannot win the war of wage and living standards inequality. In order to do this, the toilers must understand the basic rules of the capitalist system. The governor of California, Jerry Brown, explained this is a speech the other day to some labor groups. He said if the consumers are up to their eyeballs in debt, aren’t making a decent wage, how the heck are they going to buy anything? If they don’t buy anything, the economy doesn’t go forward and doesn’t work. This was well said, but he could have also said that the capitalist system is driven 67.5 percent by spending, which proves that when insufficient wages are not high enough for the toilers to have enough money left over after paying for their basic needs (rent, food, debts) to purchase some d

From History, Workers Speak

One big union, the dream of the Industrial Union, International Workers of the World (IWW); Eugene V. Debs said in a New York speech on Dec. 10, 1905, that the industrial workers are organized not to conciliate, but to fight the capitalist class … the capitalists own the tools they do not use and the workers use these tools they do not own and this is where the power is … no workers no one to use the tools. This is one reason one should never sign a contract, which gives away the workers’ ultimate power of withholding their labor when and where it will be advantageous to the toilers. An IWW poet wrote, “In our hands is placed a power greater than their horded gold; Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold; we can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old. For the unions make us strong. On April 23, 1910, another IWW member wrote, “With other of his class he built the road. Now o’er it many a weary mile, he packs his load chasing a job, spurred on by hunger

Keep Up the Pressure

The low-wage, fast-food workers put up a good fight in their two-day protests. Now they just need to keep it up with well-timed events, which hurt the pockets of the money people, like on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. The low-wage inequality of living standards is just not here in the USA, it is worldwide. Some countries have made great strides in dealing with the needs of their workers. What the wage slaves need to do is cherry pick the best ideas from all over the world and develop a strategy that will make the odds in their favor for winning against the greedy. Look at the Denmark’s wages in fast food, which is $21 per hour versus the U.S.’s $7.25 federally and $8 in California. The cost of a Big Mac in Denmark is only $5.18 versus a Big Mac in the U.S. is $4. Denmark’s fast food workers are unionized. Could this be the reason they receive a living wage when our fast food workers don’t? Then there is Germany, where the corporate leaders sit with the workers and decide what

Raise the Wage

We must revisit the wage stagnation that has been going on for the last 34 years, which has exacerbated the wage inequality and lead to the decline of the unions from 35 percent in 1954 to a total of 11.3 percent of workers unionized or 6.7 percent if you count only the private sector workers. This decline has led to a downward trend of workers’ power to protect themselves from corporation greed; but what it has also done is decimate the middle class and those used to have now have been pushed down into the bottom of the social class of the have very littles or have nothings. Consider this: cash in a capitalist system is just like fertilizer to a farmer, the more cash you put in the pockets of the workers the healthier the capitalist system. If you withhold the cash it’s just like withholding the fertilizer from crops you end up with stunted plants and your economy won’t grow. Austerity is withholding fertilizer on steroids. So at this time there is just the 1 to 5 percent—and the bot

Wake Up or Lose Social Security & Post Office

The enemy of the toilers has finally figured out how to destroy our unions and the Holy Grail of liberal assets such as Social Security and the U.S. Postal Service. They are using the old Trojan horse tactic. What is happening is that the GOP has implanted the enemy inside these agencies as heads of the agencies. These people are not union protected and therefore are at-will employees who, for the most part, are at the end of their careers and are not willing to jeopardize their pensions to fight for their workers. In the case of Social Security workers their diabolical plan is to shut down the offices in which there are real people to guide retirees through the maze of red tape to get their Social Security they paid into the system or Social Security Disability Insurance. Their answer for why this is being done is automation is more efficient in doing a person’s job by computer or phone, which will then destroy the Social Security system. When the stories start coming out it may be to

Where are Anonymous & OWS?

Where are the Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street people have they been driven underground? Have they lost support? Lost interest? Are they in jail? Are they still alive? Or are they just beaten and scared of what the 1 percent can do to them? Of all these things I could understand, but if they have been bought off by the 1 percent, that would be the cardinal sin and I would hope for all the world’s 99 percent that being bought off is not the case. They must be given credit of starting the conversation about wage and life style inequality between the 1 percent and 99 percent. And even with other distractions, such as the revolutions in Arab Spring, Ukraine, Liberia, and Afghanistan. Of course, the USA’s local problems, plus Palestine and Israel, are distractions, but even with these distractions the main cause of the problems for 99 percent people are all the levels of inequality between the 99 percent and the 1 percent. The 1 percent with all its money and power hording will continue to

Fight Back Before It's Too Late

What would the world be like if the dream of the old International Workers of the World (IWW) could come true? The IWW thought that all toilers of the world were the same and all had rights and there is no need for country borders. All workers are brothers and sisters. So if this is true, there would not be a reason for war. All would have a place in the world, such as Israel, Palestine, Kurdistan and Ukraine would not be fighting to hold onto their spot of land in the world. It is always the toilers who do the fighting and dying for the people in the background, who pull the strings of war. How do the toilers get forced into killing their brothers and sisters? A lot of this is rooted in a lack of education and religion. As long as there are borders around countries, the string masters can manipulate the toilers to do their bidding. Sooner or later the toilers of the world will figure out that they are the ones with the power. When they do they’ll have to decide if they want to conti

Breaking the Cycle

Old anti-union and protesters’ tactics still work and are used by the corporations and large and small governments, cities, counties, state and federal. A tactic from the old days was to keep workers and workers’ families from getting together and comparing notes. The bosses worked people sun up to sun down six to seven days a week. Today, workers work two to three jobs at a time. They also used people’s ethnicity to keep people apart, such as the Irish, Asians, blacks and browns. The idea was to keep the workers from forming relationships so the bosses thought if they could keep the workers overworked, uneducated and suspicious of each other. They, the 1 percent, control the masses. The only place toilers could go and be together was church, which was again split into different religions and should be taken with a grain of salt for many were controlled by the rich. Today’s protests we see the Wall Street protesters and the police tactics, which are getting closer and closer to our m

Chamber of Commerce Enemy of Workers

The Art of War says that you must know your enemy and, yes, there is a war between the 1 percent’s very rich and the corporate chief executive officers against the toilers. The toilers do not know just who their enemies truly are because the anti-union, anti-worker corporations spend our money (from buying their products) to pound us with misinformation The inequality keeps the toilers heads bent low trying to just trying to scrap by with minimum wage jobs that they don’t have the time of energy to stand up, look around and compare notes with other toilers and understand what they, the 1 percent, are doing to us. The worst part is we give them the bullets (our money) to use against. When we do business with a store that belongs to the Chamber of Commerce, which is just a union by a different name. They use their dues to lobby against unions and higher wages for the workers, safety laws and benefits. They look out for themselves, not the workers who will eventually be their customers.

Contractor Scam

It looks like the working people who used to think they were contractors were scammed by their bosses, who kept the workers from earning a living wage and having union representation. They convinced these workers it was better to be independent than "work for the man." Someone (Teamsters) ran this up the flag pole at the National Labor Relations Board and guess what—the NLRB ruled that the Port truck drivers were employees and that they had the rights of union representation. The truck drivers have lost millions of dollars these past years because of this scam of being contractors’ status, which was just pure unadulterated bull crap. Unfortunately, the workers believed the scam to be true. At this time about two-thirds of the 75,000 port drivers in the U.S. are misclassified as contractors. This is not the only place where bosses try to beat the system by classifying workers as contractors. I found while organizing for the sheet metal workers that on prevailing wage jobs, s

Corporate Traitors

The people at the top the 1 percent are anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-tax are now anti-USA. Let’s start with corporations’ tax rate. Yes, it is 35 percent, but with loopholes some pay 20 percent and some pay zero. However, when adjusted for GDP (gross domestic product), our corporate tax rate is lower than that of most other industrialized countries and their economies. In the 1950s, corporate taxes accounted for 30 percent of federal revenues. By 2010, this rate dropped to just 9 percent. The difference has been compensated by taxing what is left of the middle class. To get where they do not have to pay any taxes, but still enjoy the infrastructure of the U.S. and the customer base plus the Armed Forces’ protection. They now are moving or planning to move their corporate offices to offshore tax havens while maintaining the benefits of U.S. legal protections (think patents) and basic research. This makes the chief executive officers and stockholders/share holders very, very rich an

Unionize Private Contracted Firefighters

If any type of wage slave worker looks around they will see wage disparity, even within their own job types. If you are the lucky one with a good or better wage you cannot help but feel bad for the person doing the same job at a lower wage. I, as a firefighter, just recently off the fire line saw this very situation and have seen it many times before, but this time it just bothered me more. The last round of fires this year people were getting hurt and fire season is just starting in northern California. I think this is a place where unions should be looking into private hand crews and see what the workers’ wages are and do they ever get overtime or any benefits. I know most pay minimum wage. The workers sleep on the ground, eat at fire camps, and get lunches water at camps like the Cal Fire and volunteer firefighters get so why do the private contractors pay only minimum wage? I see that Firestorm Wildland Fire Suppression Inc. has new transport buggies and pickup trucks so you would

Out Firefighting

I am currently fighting fires in northern California. SO while I'm away, take a look at this article. Seems like we were ahead of ourselves with this knowledge! http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/06/lawrence-odonnell-wall-street-figured-out-that-income-inequality-is-bad-for-wall-street/ Another article for consideration that shows Canada labor is in the lead again! http://unifor.org/en/whats-new/news/bombardier-workers-stand-young-workers Here's another article to get your blood boiling. http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/minn-restaurant-charging-customers-minimum-wage-fee/ (my wife is taking care of the blog while I am away) Here's an AP photo of me and my chief, Theresa Carroll, fighting one of the big fires in Northern California: http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Western-Wildfires/e4d26fd159b8474b9200acc309a98915/44/0 For more fire photos, some with my fellow MCVFC firefighters: http://www.apimages.com/Search?query=western+fires&ss=10&st=k