Labor, unions, $15 an hour minimum wage, pensions, and safe working conditions are all under attack here in the U.S. and around the world. In the U.S., the Republicans have put out a bill to gut Social Security and raise the retirement age to 69 years old.
The anti-worker people are coming for everything President Franklin D. Roosevelt accomplished. They want to destroy Social Security and Medicare. This is what Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, told an audience at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Donald Trump, who was handed the presidency by the electoral collage, is lining his cabinet with other like-minded people as himself. Trump has recruited corporate individuals that he promised his followers he would banish from Capitol Hill. Trump filled the Secretary of State position with an Exxon Mobil executive; for the head of the Treasury; Trump chose an executive from Goldman Sachs; Secretary of Labor is a fast food executive; he chose an anti-gay person as his Attorney General; and the “bankruptcy king” as Secretary of Commerce. What could go wrong?
The onslaught is on as Trump has fulfilled the right wing’s wish list to see laws and regulations gutted on climate change, nutrition, education, healthcare, wages, voting rights, the environment, social benefits, work-place safety, and any and all legislation that made this country strong and enviable.
In 1933, Hitler said, “We must reduce workers’ salaries and take away their right to strike.” This is now happening all across the U.S. and in parts of other countries. In Michigan state, the legislators adopted anti-labor laws, which can fine workers up to $2,000 for protesting. The outgoing North Carolina Republican governor, Pat McCrory, signed a bill passed by the GOP-held legislature that strips the newly elected Democratic governor of some of his authority and reduces Democratic Party's control over election boards.
This is just the beginning, and a lot of what is happening is not being reported by our corporate owned media. The decimation of our country can be laid at the feet of people who vote without investigating the promises politicians make to get elected and the greed that motivates people to screw a country into ruin.
The survival of American democracy requires the existence of a flourishing union work force. In a survey, 68 percent of Americans approve of labor unions. So, as an old sheet metal organizer, I say we need to go all out in organizing while the soldering iron is hot, to use a sheet metal workers tool. We should organize all workers no matter where or what kind of work they do. All workers have the right to belong to a union and all should support each other. If you, in your work place, do not know how to form a union, then do what Napoleon’s military adopted adage, ‘Jump into the battle and then figure it out.’ One of the best ways to organize is worker to worker and plan it out over a meal or coffee and talk to other union workers to see what would work best for you and also what unions are winning at this time. Just go for it. When things are in disarray, like the shit show in Washington, D.C., they might not even know what you are doing until it is too late for them to push back aga...
Comments
Post a Comment