Some times when bad things happen it is for the best in the long run. Once when working with my tools as a union sheet metal worker, my tools were stolen. My co-worker told me it was the best thing for me because my tools were so old and outdated, basically crap. Fortunately for me, my insurance covered the cost for new tools.
Two back-to-back hurricanes, Irma and Maria, decimated Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, could be a good thing in the long run. Puerto Rico’s infrastructure was crap before the hurricanes, but the wreckage gives it an opportunity to rebuild it in a stronger, more efficient way. The government owns the utilities, such as roads, electrical grid, schools, and water and sewer systems, and allowed the infrastructure to become so fragile by underfunding since 2006. The government cut spending by 12 percent, laid off one quarter of the government work force, jacked-up sales taxes ad reduced pensions. With these layoffs, there’s no one to run the sewage system, and none of the remaining workers know how to run the operation.
The medical program funds are running out of money. This is the result of capitalists plundering Puerto Rico. The U.S. government has plundered this country’s resources and the wealth created by the island workers is going to fill the coffers of the U.S. capitalists since wrestling control of the island from Spain in 1898, as a result the average annual income in Puerto Rico is less than half that of Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S.
So now that there is nothing left, Puerto Rico will start over with a new infrastructure, and will have to be rebuilt for the world is watching. The time, we must not let the vultures plunder Puerto Rico again. We must stop the greedy capitalists continue taking the pensions away the country’s workers and giving the pensions to the government’s general fund, instead of going after the wealthy/investors to pay a greater sum to keep the government going.
There is a lot of work to be done and Puerto Rico should get just as much help as Texas ad Florida is getting in their clean-up and rebuilding after their hurricane damage.
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...
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