In all wars the battles decide who wins so you must win the most battles and the most important ones and the battle to unite the working class against the divide and rule strategies of the capitalist class upon which their domination rest. It is a battle the wage slaves must win. If you don’t fight, you don’t win—period. If someone you know doesn’t understand why the minimum wage needs to raise, wait until the end of the month and then ask again. The cost of everything is going up; some of the costs are understandable, but some are not and corporations are using any excuse to raise prices, but not workers’ wages. How the hell are we supposed to survive>
The employers try to turn workers who are black, female, gay, Mexican, or immigrant into scapegoats as distraction for the lack of good jobs creation along with the strategies the oligarchies blame Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act and the minimum wage, but the minimum wage raises are coming and the spending power of the toilers will be better and if a couple living together can demand $15 an hour each, they would conceivably earn $30 an hour. They will have a chance to pull ahead for themselves and their offspring. Then throw in good healthcare and the possibility of a pension down the road.
We will then be back to the pre-Reagan years for workers; and then we must start building a fortress to defend what we have clawed back, such as strong unions and laws to give us back the right to strike and laws prohibiting strike breakers or replacement workers. Workers must start saving for hard times when they have to strike to preserve or enhance their working conditions. There is no material product out there that you or a family member HAS to have. It’s time to tighten your belts and forego the luxuries. It will actually feel good to do without because you’ll know you’re taking care of your future and when your money starts adding up, you’ll feel good knowing you didn’t cave on something you can live without while sticking it to the corporations. It’s time for the minimalist lifestyle.
Remember, to win, we, the proletarians, will have to get control, but not so much in Washington, D.C., which is in the grip of corporate lobbyists and the 1 percent oligarchies. No, we need control of the local governments, such as school boards, water boards, city councils, and county board of supervisors, and then the state level. This is what the Tea Party did and look how that turned out. They are fast trying to roll back our country to when the white male controlled everything because they know he is an endangered species, but we have to pay the price for their fear and greed. This is where the Have Nots can and will win.
Already many states are raising the minimum wage, slow walking it, but still raising it. Seattle, WA, will be up to $15 in a few years and the City of Davis, CA, with a resolution/petition to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Late last year, San Jose, CA, began raising its minimum wage and it is now more than $10 an hour.
Local is where we can win. Look at the marijuana laws, as an example. The legalization advocates will win or lose at the local level. It is a war between the Haves and the Have Nots, but, in the long run, the Nots will win if they unite in this fight.
To change the abundance of labor in the world is to put more money in the pockets of the laborer to buy the products their fellow workers are making. Otherwise, when there are more products than money, there is slump in the economy. Austerity policies, low wages and automation (robots) were also of concern in the 1950s when Henry Ford II, CEO of Ford, took Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers Union, on a tour of a new engine plant.
Ford gestured to a fleet of new machines and said, “Walter, how are you going to get these robots to pay union dues?” The union leader turned to Ford and said, “Henry, how are you going to get robots to buy your cars?”
This type of change in the labor has created a new type of working class that swings from task to task in order to make ends meet while enduring the loss of labor rights and bargaining rights. They are called “precariat” workers, a group of workers who live on the verge of collapse due to the instability of the nature of their job…