The strikes for $15 to $18 an hour are mere incidents in the class warfare. The strikes are tests of strength, periodic drills in the course of which the workers train themselves for concerted action. This training is most necessary to prepare the wage slaves for the final catastrophe, the general strike, which will complete the expropriation of the employers.
The violence of a strike is simply the folding of the workers’ arms or putting your hands in your pockets. This philosophy was eloquently voiced by International Workers of the World organizer Joseph Ettor. If the workers of the world want to win all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property or money possessed by the capitalists and oligarchies.
As long as the workers keep their hands in their pockets, the capitalists cannot put their hands in the pockets of the workers. With this passive resistance and the workers absolutely refusing to move, remaining absolutely silent, they are more powerful against all the weapons and instruments the other side has for an attack. Until the time of the general strike, Ettor said workers must be inspired by a sense of class solidarity and militancy.
This only works when all unions are together in solidarity. Some unions don’t support the $15 to $18 an hour fight at this time. Why? I think some are afraid that one or two unions could become very powerful if all low wage workers end up joining the two unions working with the fast food workers: International Union of Food, Ag, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco & Allied Workers Association, Service Employees International Union 1021 and the United Food & Commercial Workers unions, to name three.
Some union workers think $15 to $18 an hour is too high a wage to pay a fast food worker, as if their work is any less valuable then their own. What the hell is this: I got mine so screw you? If this is some unions’ thinking, the workers of the world are doomed to wage slavery by the oligarchies.
Remember the most important word for us, wage slaves, is Solidarity. It is the only winning strategy.
It’s time to pick a side. You want to have and keep unions with good wages and pensions, then it’s time to pick a side. You want to keep Social Security for yourself and family, it is time to pick a side. You want to get or keep Medicare and Obama’s Affordable Care Act, then it’s time to pick a side. It is us against the billionaires. The very rich got that way off the backs of workers, and now want to strip everything away from those workers. It’s time to pick a side. The very rich can buy countries, then make the people get on their hands and knees and grovel and beg for scrapes that usually go into the dumpster. It’s time to pick a side. Is this what we want for our family and our future? It’s time to pick a side. Get ready to fight for you and your families’ lives. There is no middle ground with these greedy people for they want it all—all the money—all the power—all the land so where does this leave us when they have all the commons, like water, land and airways? It’s time to pick...
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