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 bottom have very little since there is no longer a middle class and this bottom group is where the power will be when they are educated and motivated and then realize that they will have to fight for their bread. They, the proletarians, will realize that the GOP or world’s anti-worker money people would like nothing more than to turn all workers into slaves with no minimum wage, healthcare, and pensions or work safety. Remember that in all adversity there is an opportunistic window to crawl through and in this case it will be people power, which must be moved in a smart productive way to benefit workers and their families and not end up in an extremists’ organization like we see in the ISIS/ISIL movement. Don’t fool yourself, these extremists groups are already in the U.S. Again, the people at the bottom have nothing are ripe pickings and gravitate toward extremists groups, but we can curtail this by having them fight for the revolution that benefits them and their families and not some ruler. We can start rebuilding the middle class by hiking the minimum wage to $15 to $18 an hour in the U.S. and supporting our workers worldwide. If we put money in the spenders’ pockets the jobs will come and we will wipeout poverty worldwide and take away the hunting grounds of the extremists. Corporations are seeing record profits while we’re suffering. Maybe the government will again start working for the people instead of just the 1 to 5 percent. For us in the U.S., let’s all support the fast food, low-wage workers on their “Fight for $15” today Sept. 4, 2014. One of the reasons for the decline in wages is the fact that no one, not even educated workers, is able to bargain for anything. This must be changed. Maybe hitting the money people in their pockets will change things could be a fast food strike will start things to get better for all. Another thing, the world workers should be looking at and learning from the relationships between workers and companies in Germany, and worker co-ops. These alternatives to the eight-hour work day are to be considered when fighting for your rights and what works best for you.