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, such as government work, people tried to use the contractor scam to beat prevailing wages. I always enjoyed catching them in the act. So, kudos to the port truck drivers and all the unions who supported them.
We all must stand together as workers and support our toilers the word over just like the old International Workers of the World advocated. What is happening in the ports of California and Washington state does reverberate in other countries, like Ukraine, Turkey, Spain, France, UK, South America, and Hungary—all the places where toilers toil to eradicate inequality.
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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