Union Perspectives

Unions must be smarter when they end their contracts in order to have more power at the table. The Holy Grail would be if all unions contacts ended at the same rate nationwide. To start this we would let the local labor councils like the one in Shasta County in far northern California, which has the Five Counties Council. This council includes represents the unions of school, water, fire districts and cities and counties. The plan would be to get all the labor unions within the different entities to have their contracts end on the same date or as close together as possible so the employees of cities, districts and county would have more power together than alone. County and cities usually divide up the departments and not all are under one union and this benefits the government agencies, not the employees. If the different unions negotiated to end the contracts at a predetermined date, the Five Counties Council could arrange a walkout if needed and the power would be back with the w

Unions have finally recognized that the only person who will work with unions and support new and better laws for workers is Bernie Sanders. He is probably our only chance for unions to grow and unions can reclaim their lost territory. We may even get a national card check in place where 51 percent of workers want a union the company or corporation must start negotiations with the workers. This keeps companies from dragging out the process and bringing in union busters. The unions now need to really get behind Sanders with their support, boots on the ground and ask union members to vote for him and consider donating $27 to Sander’s campaign. Healthcare for all or Medicare for all that covers dental, eyes, hearing and mental health with no out of pocket money will help union workers and owners. If healthcare was universal, unions can bid jobs better against nonunion shops. The unions need more union schools to send members to and union retreats for union families so all union members

Unions are coming. The workers worldwide are rising up to fight for better wages, healthcare , pensions, union rights, housing and climate change. They are also tired of wars and the exorbitant cost of education. People the world over want a government that represents the 99 percent and not the 1 percent who just want more money to buy more power. This is a real class warfare and we, the people, will win with strong unions, which work and support all workers, unionized or not. At this time, we have the auto workers fighting over tier workers who work by another worker doing the same job but for a lower wage. This is done not only to save GM money, but also to cause division among the work force. The General Motors workers won because all the workers stayed together. Then the Black Jewel miners are still fighting for their wages. They will win if all with a message of solidarity, money, which can be sent to: With Love From Harlan P.O. Box 1621 Harlan, KY 40831. Checks should be payabl

The professional sports teams’ unions could help their fans, by advocating on their behalf. It is the fans who pay for their very good wages through their purchasing power. Take baseball, they need fans who make enough money to afford the coast of tickets, parking and hot dogs at the stadiums. The Major League Baseball Professional Association should make sure that players aren’t forced to cross other unions’ picket lines as both the Yankees and Dodgers did last year at Boston hotels where workers were on strike. It would have been a significant gesture for a few Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox players to show up and join the hotel workers’ picket line. One way to avoid putting major league players in this embarrassing situation would be to insert language in their contracts that requires teams to stay in union hotels and prohibits therefrom staying in hotels where the workers are in the midst of labor disputes with management. Maybe if the players were given a little education on th

Wonder why the GOP is so afraid of the words, “Class Warfare”? Could it be because the class in “working class” out number the rich class and this explains why the rich has always done its best to split the working class into two groups, one being those who vote against their own best interests and those who see through the efforts. This practice started in the 1600s when the rich used First Nations and African hostages against the white settlers to build this country. As new people came from around the world immigrated to this country, such as people from Poland, Ireland, Italy, Asia, and so on, the rich tried to get them to fight amongst each other. The smart workers, like the International Workers of the World (IWW), saw through this ploy and how well it was working for the rich. The answer to this practice was a single word, “Solidarity,” which became the battle cry of the IWW and other unions. Soon, the very rich started to devise plans to split the unions and get them fighting

What happens when one person is above the law? And, what if he or she is the president of the United States? If this were to happen then it is not just one person above the law, but this includes all the people helping this person be above the law knowing there is a pardon waiting for them when the rug is pulled out from under them. How can this happen? First a party, like the Republicans, needs to be corrupt and greedy to the point it will warp the very foundation of our country. Then you must obtain control of the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court by denying a sitting president the right to appoint a candidate to fill a vacant seat; then you get the new president to appoint judges willing to rule the way you want and not by legal precedence. Then you pull out all of the stops to include election corruption to get your candidate elected to the presidency, just like George W. Bush, who was followed in office by Barrack Obama, who chose not to prosecute the corruption that w

Reports are coming out of the government saying the economy is good, but tell that to the people who are working at Lowe’s, a retail giant company, which is scheduled to layoff thousands of workers from the assembly lines to janitors. Many of these employees have worked full time for the company for years putting together girls, wheelbarrows and other products. The company plans to outsource the assembly of products to the companies that pay lower wages and fewer if any benefits. Lowe’s is in competition with Home Depot to boost its profits off the backs of workers. The company has already closed 140 stores during the last year. The workers will not get severance pay instead they will get up to two weeks pay. The loss of jobs within the retail industry is just beginning. Some workers are being fired as 7,500 stores are closing this year. Many have depleted once thriving shopping malls. The rising dominance in retail sales of Amazon and Walmart turning to robotization instead of empl

All workers need to have and study a book about labor history, what worked and what did not as written in the book “Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology” by Joyce L. Kornbluh. She outlines how workers fought for the right to unionize, and safe workplaces that the GOP are working overtime to erode. When I Was going to night school on the GI Bill, a person in my class, who was a human resource worker at Point Mugu Navy Base in Oxnard, CA, told me why the antiunion people were beating labor’s ass on most fronts in the work place was because the union-busting people studied labor history and used it against workers. They knew what worked and didn’t work and acted accordingly. Most labor people don’t know their labor history. If you don’t know yourself you will lose half of your fights. If you don’t know your enemy you will most likely lose all of your fights. In Kornbluh’s book, she shows how education of the workers during the 1800 and early 1900s on the tactics unions used, like direct ac

Out living your pensions, we, who had a good pension 20 years ago when we retired, have seen our monthly pay slowly drain away. With a pension there is no savings and the saving we had when working also slips away to make up the difference in our pension shortcomings. This is if we were lucky enough to stash money away while working and not experiencing any major setbacks, like an illness, house fire, or natural disaster. Just keeping with repairs on a house can be drain a budget even if you are skilled enough to have the health and knowledge to do the repairs yourself and not have to hire someone to do the work for you or let your largest investment deteriorate, which will impact the value on your house should you need to sale it. So, what can a person do to compensate their income? If they are lucky and have good health, they might be able to find a job, but a job that compensates a 65 to 80 year old for their knowledge and experience might be difficult to find. If you can find a

So, it appears my union, Sheet Metal Air Rail Transportation (S.M.A.R.T.) Local 104, learned nothing from union history. Our district in California is having a special election Aug. 27th and there are four Republicans and one Democrat running. My union decided to back a Republican, a Republican who refused to sign a questionnaire of support for unions. A Republican who appears to have less experience and knowledge than the Democrat running. S.M.A.R.T. chose the wife of a Republican, who left this office for the state Senate. The flyer is sent out read: “Local 104 is proud to endorse Megan Dahle for Assembly. With Megan’s experience and understanding of state government she will hit the ground running. Megan and Local 104 are committed to bringing Apprenticeship opportunities to the North State as they rebuild after the devastating wildfires.” Dahle’s Republican husband, while in office, did nothing to bring apprenticeships to the North State, and, full disclosure, while I fully endo

As Trump sniffs around for a war to start, I thought it would be a good idea to remind people of one of the best speeches against war given by Eugene V Debs, who was imprisoned for speaking our against World War I. During one of his recent rallies, Trump encouraged his followers to join the military and show their patriotism … In part, here is Debs’ speech: “War throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages, when feudal lords, who inhabited the castles and whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine, colluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth. They declared war upon one another. But, they, themselves, did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords. The barons of Wall Street go to war. The fuels barons of the Middle Age, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to

Workers here in the U.S. and around the world have had enough of low pay, bad working conditions, bad healthcare and not enough working hours or too many with no overtime pay. Employers forcing employees to work faster create a safety issue, like what occurs at the Amazon warehouses, which employees report accidents, such as getting shocked by touching metal railings, and even deaths occurring. In Chile, there are 1,700 workers are on strike at Walmart due to low wages and job safety issues from forced to work faster and job cuts. This strike has closed 130 stores. In California, the grocery outlets of Albertsons, Ralphs, Vons and Pavilions, workers are rallying for higher wages and more hours. The local union is United Food and Commercial Workers, one worker said when they asked for more hours, their hours were reduced. “We are not even making minimum wage,” the person said. The London Train Cleaners joined a 48-hour work stoppage over the accelerated shift schedules and pay cuts.

We now live in a wannabe principality, but it is really an autocracy run by an oligarchies under the guise of what we think is a democracy. It is all about the money and how it buys power through government, which can make laws or can get rid of laws and so they can gain more money and power. For people who still will need to work and are lucky to have a union, they need to understand that the GOP government is hellbent to destroy the unions for they still have some power in membership and money. At this time the government wants to get new laws that prohibit unions and street protests. If the GOP can neuter the unions, they will control the people. There will only be gig jobs with no living wage, no benefits, such as healthcare, or pensions. The workers will be a wage slave working and living hand to mouth and just one job away from the street or one sickness away from bankruptcy. Even people with pensions and healthcare are seeing their pensions stay the same amount while the cost

Good news, people, Fox “news” is reporting our country is so great you can work until you drop dead. Isn’t that wonderful? It didn’t report what kind of job you’ll be slaving away at, but you won’t be able to retire so don’t quit your job. Fox did not address stagnate wages, escalating housing and basic needs costs, full-time jobs being replaced by gig jobs and inequality created by the pay gap between CEOs and the workers. In the 1950s and until 1965, this gap was 20 to 1. In the 1970s through 2014, the gap began to widen and then in a steroid induced greed, CEO compensation increased 997 percent compared to the 10.9 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation. Today, the disparity stands at 354 to 1. This doesn’t factor in the disparity between minimum and median wage workers, which is higher in the U.S. than any other industrialized country. On average, a typical median wage worker earns $905 a week versus a minimum wage worker earning $209. There are numerous posts on this

Sitting at me desk, trying to think if something to write is very hard with all the purpose-driven chaos caused by our government and the lack of appropriate media coverage of the damage being done by this corrupt government. It’s hard to stay positive, but I keep reminding myself, “This too shall pass.” I am looking at my books by authors like Jack London (The Iron Heel), Eugene V. Debs (The Bending Cross), Peter Barnes (Liberty and Dividends for All), Thomas Paine (Common Sense Rights of Man), Samuel B. Griffith (edition of Suntzu’s The Art of War), Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince) and wonder how many people have read these great works, and had our educational system taught the truths within the covers of these books would our country be in the mess we are in now? We have a belligerent, insecure, devious, unintelligent, deadbeat conman in the White House bankrupting our country and throwing parades for himself like despots of other regimes, while our feckless executive branch of

When you decide to buy a house, like most people you take a loan out from a bank. As a result, the bank actually owns the house until it is paid off. But, while the bank/mortgage company owns the house, you’re paying the property taxes and insurance to protect the property that the bank owns yet the bank pays nothing, plus the bank is earning interests on the loan you’ve taken out to buy the house in the first place. It’s a win-win for the bank. The banks and mortgage companies can also sell your house and make money on it while paying no taxes and getting interests on your house that they actually own and can foreclose on you. Taxes should be pro-rated. They, the banks and mortgage companies, pay most of the taxes at first but then as the loan gets paid down, you pay more of the taxes until you own the house at which time you pay one hundred percent of the taxes and you have no more interest to pay. Most home loans are for fifteen or thirty years. Just think about the taxes you pay

For the universal basic income (UBI) to work it must be for all—the very poor to the very rich and those in-between. If the rich do not want the UBI, they can opt out and used elsewhere. If all received UBI, no group of people can be named or vilified for taking the money. The unions should want a UBI because if there were a UBI, unions could focus on work place safety, training, productivity, healthcare and pensions. The unions would no longer be vilified for wanting higher wages than the nonunion workers. The unions need to get behind the UBI as part of their strategy for the future and their survival. Union employees could possibly start their own business like I did when I received the GI Bill money to go to school. The GI Bill provided enough for me to go to school, buy groceries while working for a sheet metal union job during the day. The people who are going to fight against a UBI would like to divide workers, unemployed, rich, race, poor, gender, lifestyle, union and nonun

Where is the outrage? Why are the old Fox television viewers not outraged over the gas prices, which are now more than $3.99 and higher a gallon? Food is also escalating in prices, as are the cost of heating and cooling our homes and businesses. Most of the Fox watchers are Social Security pensioners with limited income, which, thanks to Ronald Reagan, is taxed—again. Even with Medicare, most have to drive to the doctor’s appointment and gas at $3.99 a gallon, leaves less in the food and housing budget. All you hear from these old people is crickets about why this is happening. Think back to when President Obama was in office and how loud they screamed about gas prices and how he wore a tan suit—all because they were spoon fed outrage from Fox entertainment news. How are these people paying the difference in these rate increases? Is it by credit cards, skimping on their medications, applying for other government assistance programs, like Meals on Wheels, relying on family members or

What does a universal basic income (UBI) and a board game have in common? Free money. When the game Monopoly was originally invented as The Landlord’s Game back in the early 1900s by Elizabeth Magie, it was created as a teaching tool to help people understand the consequences of David Ricardo’s Law of Economic Rent and Henry George’s concept of economic privilege and land value taxation. Hence, a player buys a piece of property and then puts a railroad on it, if another player lands on that property they have to pay a price to the land’s owner. Magie’s intent in creating the game was to teach and help people understand that renting property enriches the owner while impoverishing the tenant into bankruptcy, especially those not under rent control. The concept of this game has been used as a teaching tool internationally, as well. It’s the game’s “Pass Go Collect $200” that brings it around to the UBI concept. Trump has ensured the rich receive a UBI of sorts by cutting their taxes

If we want to stop wars and get more jobs, we have to take the profit out of wars. We do this by nationalizing the arms production. By doing this, the government, our government, would control the so-called “military industrial complex,” as Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it. The U.S. Government’s military budget for 2019 is $686 billion, that is larger than the next top five countries: China at $168.2 billion, Saudi Arabia at $82.9 billion, Russia at $63.1 billion, India at $57.9 billion and the United Kingdom at $56.1 billion. The U.S. gives Israel military aid and sells armaments to Saudi Arabia. The 2020 U.S. military budget is expected to be $989 billion. Now imagine how much of this is spent on contractors, like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and the others, and then add on the tax break trump has already given these corporations. How much of this money is actually going to protect us since the threats we face now aren’t

I recently had a conversation with a person who asked why no one wants to work at minimum wage jobs. While this is a good question, it also shows how disconnected the person, who lives a comfortable life, is from the economic reality of so many in our country.  This person pays workers $9 to $11 an hour to do work in a large orchard. I suggested that perhaps some people have given up seeking work because the income they’d earn would amount to them merely existing on minimum wage. Minimum wage workers may earn enough to pay rent and maybe have a little leftover for food but little else, like gas, utilities, car insurance and clothes. Low wages are not a good motivation to go to work with the prospect of never getting ahead. It's not hard to empathize with these workers when you learn what Robert Reich recently pointed out, “Wall Street bonuses totaled $27.5 billion last year, which is more than 3 times the combined annual earnings of all American workers employed full-time at the

Billionaires want to save the capitalism. There are and have been many people with ideas on how to fix the capitalist system so that it will work for everyone. Thomas Piketty (who wrote Capital), Bill Gates, (who created Microsoft) Thomas Paine (who wrote Common Sense Rights of Man), and Peter Barnes (who wrote With Liberty and Dividends For All). There is no silver bullet to fix capitalism. It will take many measures, such as bringing back the cash corporation and the very rich have stashed in offshore accounts. This money needs to be brought and put back into the flow of capitalism. The estate tax needs to be reinstated; the practice of inheriting extreme wealth from one generation to the next in families just allows the family’s power to grow with each generation. There is also the idea of charging payment for the use of our Commons, which some people and large corporations use freely, such as the air, water, minerals, courts, laws, protection of patents, our armed forces protect

The oligarchs require a government with tremendous power of law enforcement to control the anger of the people. More GOP controlled state legislatures are working to suppress local progressive victories, such as living wage ordinances, filling private prisons with poor or undocumented people. They are engineering retirement crisis by moving workers to inadequate 401Ks. The GOP is once again taking away rights of consumers and workers to bring grievances to court by making workers sign forced arbitration agreements. They are gutting the public education system to keep people ignorant because they’re more likely to vote for GOP lies. The GOP will even refuse children clean water as they’ve been doing in Flint, Michigan for going on five years now. James Buchanan says people who failed to foresee and save money for their future needs are to be treated as subordinate members if the species akin to animals who are dependent on others. He says this without factoring in the wage discrepancy

Our new leaders have finally come to continue the fight started by Eugene V. Debs and Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the 99 percent. Joining Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in this fight are congresswomen New York’s Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC), Minnesota’s Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, Michigan’s Rashida Harbi Tlaib, Massachusetts’ Ayanna Soyini Pressley, California’s Katie Moore Porter, and Washington state’s Pramila Jayapal. It looks like Massachusetts’ Senator Elizabeth Warren may be returning to her progressive roots, as well. These people are thinking of big and bold ideas to combat the deterioration that the 1 percent has caused to our economy and planet. They are sick and tired of the slow walking, do-nothing Congress and Senate that is supposed to represent all Americans, but cater to and follow the direction of the 1 percent. The pressure from these progressives is why the Democrats introduced the Green New Deal last week, championed by AOC and veteran Massachusetts’ Ed Marke

People make a living in one of two ways: labor or non-labor. The people who are at the top tend to live off non-labor activities, such as capital gains, dividends and other forms of property income, which is taxed at a lower rate than labor income. The rest of the people get their income from labor, which is considers Social Security and pensions as deferred wages and salaries. The top 1 percent’s money is earned from non-labor. This is not to say that the bulk of income should come from non-labor, but everyone should get some non-labor income as a birth right otherwise our middle class—what is left of it—will disappear. It will disappear and with it the capitalist system as we know it today and along with it our democracy. Our government will be turned into something that will not work well for the 90 percent. If we want to change the wealth inequality in this country and distribute the wealth more evenly, we need to change the way our economic system is operated. Entrepreneur Andr