Where are the thousands of low-wage workers? Why are they not in the streets? This is the time—it’s spring and the weather is nice for the offense of the Have Nots or the Have Very Littles. It is hard to justify not coming together here in the USA when we have the right to do so especially when we see Vietnamese Nike and Adidas shoe workers in Ho Chi Minh City fighting for their social gains for wages and pensions.
The Vietnamese workers organized 80,000 workers at the Pou Yuen Vietnam shoe factory. Why can’t we in the Free World put together that kind of number? This shoe factory is a subsidy of a Taiwan-based Pou Chen group, which employs more than 400,000 wage slaves in the countries like China, Vietnam and Indonesia. Last year 45,000 workers at its Yue Yuen Factory in Dongguan in southern China fought and won in 11 days for contributing that was owed to them. There were 300 strikes in Vietnam in 2014.
These are communist countries and the workers seem to be kicking ass and holding the corporations accountable and it seems the government is helping. Things will never change until the proletarians come together in large organized groups of thousands. Then the Walmarts, Home Depot, Target, McDonald and the list goes on will pay attention. At this time we have miners in Ukraine, Turkey, U.S., Mauritania, West Africa and oil workers in the U.S., railroad workers in British Columbia, Canada are all in the fight against inequality, and workers from all areas should come together to support each other in this fight.
These are just a few, but they all need to start talking to each other and when possible leverage each other to gain power. Remember it is a war between the Haves and the Have Nots and people power can win this inequality and $15 to $18 an hour minimum is just starting and we are gaining ground.
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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