Fighting Amongst Ourselves

Anger and distrust is destroying the workers, both unionized and non-union. Even some unions are split, and some unions are fighting each other, which then makes the non-union workers distrust our unions even more. Our anger is misdirected by intention. If the money people can keep us fighting amongst ourselves then we won't see how they are screwing us over. This distrust started in the U.S. and worldwide with the anti-union line of Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher government along with the anti-union policies of Ronald Reagan's administration. But the assault actually began in the late 1940s, and escalated in the late 1970s, and has gotten progressively worse since 1981 until now. Polls have revealed some dissatisfaction on the part of our members and nonmembers alike with the way unions are run and governed. Unions are doing a poor job of presenting their members and giving members a say in how a union should operate and not telling union members what the unions are doing. This was happening throughout New Zealand, Great Britain, and the U.S. There are things union leaders should be looking at to fix the dissatisfaction. Question how it is the workers vote? Most blue collar workers vote for labor supporters, and most white collar voters overwhelmingly vote for conservative people, who protect their monied interests. This is a union killing vote and needs to change. Unions should address the culture of greed, the inhumane treatment of workers, the exploitation of government benefits by corporations to protect their profits by paying their workers as little as possible, and the attack on the American way of life. So how did this happen? Were we victims of our own success? Did the rise of the welfare state and the expansion of government programs and services reduced the appeal of unionism by generalizing the benefits that attracted workers to unions in the past. Let’s go back to why unions were formed in the first place. It started by imposing hardships on workers who came from agrarian-type of work to the industrialization type of lifestyle. Great Britain, where the industrial revolution began was the first country to see the birth of a labor movement. The U.S. was next. Both countries started unions about 1853, in the U.S. was Typographical Union. The workers were fighting for shorter hours, wages, and safety. These workers, who had just come from farms to factories where wages were needed for workers were living at the margins of existence. The workers have come full circle and today it is all about wages and inequality of lifestyles, and this is what will bring unions back to power—wages, healthcare, pensions, housing, and education. The fight in 1853 began because of wages, and here we are again fighting for wages in 2017. It should be the rights of all workers to earn a minimum of $18 to $24 an hour. The ALF/CIO needs this to be.