The fight for $15 is not just a fight for money or even the equality of life. In all wars there are scrimmages and in these scrimmages is where momentum is won, which usually puts the opponent on the defense and is hard to overcome.
The fight for $15 is now worldwide and gaining ground. Labor is on the move and with each win they are and will get stronger. Also, labor is winning strikes across the U.S. and the world. But we are fighting an uphill battle with a long road to go and labor needs all wage slaves and unions to stand together just like all those hard hat union construction workers did for the fast food workers not too long ago.
We need to understand that the fight against labor started long ago, and also who we are up against. The “Art of War” says that you must know yourself (your history) and your enemy to have a chance for victory. Labor’s enemies are the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Koch brothers’ American Legislative Exchange Council or A.L.E.C., and many others. These are the anti-labor groups, but the member haven’t made the connection that they pay dues to belong to these groups just like union members, only they pay enough to buy politicians and support from religious leaders.
Billy Graham enlisted more than 1,800 clergy across the U.S. and throughout the states and cities to promote pro-corporation rhetoric, which was just a guise for anti-worker sentiments from the pulpit. They told their flocks that it was unChristian to expect their employers to have to pay them decent wages and unions were an unfair burden to these kind employers. These so-called men of faith were financially supported by corporations, like General Motors, DuPont, Firestone, JC Penney’s, Cecile DeMille, IBM, Koch brothers, Home Depot, Bank of America, Rupert Murdoch and the list goes on to dupe workers into believing they were lucky to have a job, no matter the low pay and poor working conditions. And with this kind of money, the clergy and corporations, bought radio stations, television stations, newspapers and many magazines, and paid millions to talking heads, like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rios and Beck, to spout their anti-worker-anti-union hate and their listeners believed every word to their own detriment.
This is what happened to labor. Their story of good has been silenced by the big money and the onslaught of anti-union propaganda. The anti-labor people believe that God is on their side and the wage slaves, like the slaves of the pharaohs, who are pro union or want to be union are anti-God. Convenient, how that works out in their favor. This will be one of their attacks—watch for it and see through it, see it as the dirty tactic that it truly is.
A good book that fully explains how corporations teamed up with clergy to brainwash and conned their “followers“ into giving up their basic rights and entitlements is “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America,” by Kevin M. Kruse.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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