Union Perspectives

Why aren't the army of retired union workers used in the fight to unionize today’s workers? Why aren’t the unions using their retired members? Is it because the union bosses do not know how or is it that they just don’t know how to organize retired workers or get these older union members fired up to join the new workers wanting union protraction? There is a lot of bias out there against retirees or ‘geezers’ as we’re known, but including them in this fight just might benefit all involved because a lot of us have been where today’s workers are now. The unions are wasting of experience and talent by not including us in today’s union resurgence. Retirees could be at every local public government meeting—city councils, board of supervisors, fire boards, school board and many others—and during the public comment section of the speaking about the needs of workers and retirees. During this section of the meetings, speakers are usually given two minutes to speak about anything not on the

There is no reason for a Republic to die, It should live as long as the masses want. There is not given life span. Republics will live or die by the choices of the people we put in change of our Republic’s custody if the people who we put in charge are selfish, greedy and just want power, and people still voted for these people. This simply encouraged more extreme misbehavior and the masses saw this and nothing year after year and election after election with increasing extreme behaviors. In some countries, each president took more power until they did not leave, they became president for life, like Vlad Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jung-un of North Korea. These rulers have shown the way to undercut the power of the Republics and the people. Our rule of law is jeopardized by our elected people taking bribes in exchange for their votes. So, when we, for whatever reason, supported or refused to condemn and hold these people accountable, we are just giving away our Republ

It took a pandemic to get workers to realize how much power they actually have. Calling their movement “Striketober”, workers from John Deer Tractor, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in Hollywood, education employees, healthcare workers, prison guards, and employees from Kellogg and Nabisco, among others are realizing they have the power with employers to make or break the business. In August, 4.3 million workers walked off their jobs. This is the highest number of employees to quit their jobs in the 21 years that the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey has been tracking these jobs, according to Robert Reich, who calls this movement “an unofficial general strike.” Striketober is the war of the 99 percent vs the 1 percent, and the 99 percent must win to keep our country in a democracy. These strikers are examples of inequality that is ripping our country apart and other countries around the world. The top 1 Percent evaded $163,000,000,000 in taxes,

The death of our country will be by a thousand small injuries inflicted by the ambitions of politicians for their own shortsighted gains and taking bribes for their votes. These politicians enter politics earning $174,000, but end up bringing home an income in the millions for voting the way special interests instruct them to. Take Senator Joe Manchin, he received $1,004,820 from “Securities & Investment,” $826,403 from “Lawyers/Law Firms,” $24,750 from “Tellurian Inc” and $19,900 “Starkey Hearing Technology.” Senator Krysten Sinema received $2,263,684 from “Retired,” $1,655,535 from “Lawyers/Law Firms,” $55,845 from “Davita Inc.,” and $54,900 from “Crescent Capital Group.” These two bulked at President Biden’s attempts to help the little people. Unfortunately, Manchin and Sinema are just two of the many who have sold their votes to the highest bidder. The citizens take the durability of our country for granted and refuse to vote out or condemn people who sell their votes to the

Do you know where you stand? What are your political affiliations? Where do you fit in? Are you a populist, a progressive, a libertarian, independent, moderate, centrist, Democrat or a conservative right-wing Republican? Chances are if you vote, you will fit into one or two of these aforementioned groups. What does each of these groups stand for? The populist pits the common good against special interests, the little person against the establishment, rural interests against urban. The progressive wants to remake the Democratic party, often referred to as “netroots”. They want to end wars, energy independence, open transparent government, and promoting civil liberties. The libertarians want to be left alone, minimal government, very little taxes, national defense, and the legalization of drugs and are especially opposed to the legislation of morality. Independents are moderates or centrists. They do not vote for a party but for a candidate that appeals to them the most. Republicans, wh

There needs to be some very large changes in order to get our country back on track, and keep up with the changing types of jobs, climate change, healthcare, and the cost of living to include food, fuel and Social Security. One thing the current administration could do to help out the elderly is to undo Reagan’s taxing of Social Security followed by a cost of living increase. We need to start lowering the age eligibility for Medicare to at least to the age of 50 and eventually to Medicare for All. We need a universal basic income (UBI) in order to save our capitalist system. People have to have money to spend for without it the capitalist system withers on the vine and dies. Taxes paid on sales should stay within the city and county to fund fire departments, law enforcement, streets, parks, among others necessities. As usual, the republicans will scream, ‘how do we pay for treating our citizens with respect’ or ‘we can’t afford it.’ The same tired garbage they always trot out when the

The net worth of the top 1 percent is $41.52 trillion while the net worth of the bottom 50 percent is $2.62 trillion. This is a good reason for a universal basic income (UBI) of $2,000 a month for all 18 years and older. Consider that the Walmart chain still costs the taxpayers $904,000 a year in entitlement benefits, such as food stamps and medical coverage. Universities abolished tenure and now pay adjunct professors below poverty wages. The universities hold food drives for the workers it is underpaying. Professor Margaret Mary Vojtko, battling ovarian cancer, worked for 25 years as an adjunct and died in abject poverty on wages of less than $10,000 a year. Just look at the explosion in the payday lenders and pawn shops. Corporations do not hire, they just use non-paying internships. Ours is an economy of survival, and at this time the people, when presented with options, will chose food over violence, but for how much longer? The way to pay for the UBI is by charging rent for all o

The GOP’s plan to take the country and kill our way of government is an old plan and it has worked in Cuba, it even worked for the U.S. to win its independence from England. China also used this plan by starting in the hills and staying away from the big cities until the leaders had a solid base in the country. The GOP started its plotting in the early 1980s. They wanted to win all local governmental seats, like water and fire boards, school boards of trustees, city councils, county supervisors and all law enforcement command elections. They stayed in small towns and got all GOP people elected. Then they got elected to state positions and went after the unions by getting right to work laws passed. Every state that has implemented right to work laws has seen the standard of living for its people decline. The GOP used to not talk much about this plan, but now they are public about it and flaunt their successes. In a Shasta County, a small county in northern California, they are now thr

Lose your democracy and you will lose your rights to have guns, free speech or even the right to assemble in a group. Most people are not paying attention to how precarious a situation our country is in right now thanks to the GOP, corporations using Donald Trump’s insatiable greed and disregard for the principles this country was founded upon. The U.S. has outlived our democracy by a long time. From the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli in the Prince, Machiavelli writes there are three types of government: principality, aristocracy and democracy. However, there are actually six types of government because principality can easily become tyranny; aristocracy can become an oligarchy with ease; and a democracy can turn into an anarchy with little effort. This is where we find ourselves today—on the edge. We’ve seen it Washington, D.C., recently when they wanted to kill our elected Congressional members and even Vice President Pence. So, what kind of government would these insurrectionists

The GOP’s unintended consequences is having a devastating effect on our country. The GOP’s attack on trade unions led to a shortage of trained and skilled workers. The union trained workers go through an apprenticeship programs to ensure the workers are properly trained in their particular field. The GOP’s fight to keep wages low in restaurants and fast food places, for example, has lead to wage inequality, which copied with a deadly virus spreading across our nation is making employees reluctant to return to work. Now the workers have the upper hand, and are taking advantage of the labor shortage by now demanding higher wages, unions, job safety, healthcare and pensions. These demands have spilled over into federal government jobs, such forest service firefighter called fire techs. Last week President Biden was appalled to learn that these firefighters beginning pay is only $13 an hour and promised to correct. It’s kind of the problem, these career politicians have no clue just how l

Indulge an old union man, but I feel like I need to get some things off my chest that are irritating me. For instance, retired union members who vote for republicans. Why would you vote for a party that one: hates unions and two: hates workers? Why do some males, because they’re really not emotionally developed, drive around in large, raised pick-up trucks with large trump and the American flags waving. Please look up the American flag etiquette because there is one and you’re violating it. And, why do you feel the need to rev your diesel engines like some obnoxious middle schooler? What’s with morbidly obese males carrying lots of guns like they could actually operate the weapons if in a stressful fight or flight situation. Playing Army with your friends is not the same thing as being in an actual gunfight so stop trying to intimidate people by wearing every gun you own. All you’re doing is showing the world you’re a gullible trump supporting low IQ uneducated wannabe. These are the o

In all adversity there is a window of opportunity, a window the University of California’s student researchers crawled through during the pandemic to unionize. Throughout the UC campuses, almost 15,000 student researchers signed authorization cards to join the already 80,000 other academic workers across the country who unionized with the United Auto Workers. The time is right for trade and factory workers to ask for a union to receive better, fair wages, benefits and safety. These simple workers’ rights were why the UC student researchers unionized. They were doing the work but had no rights or protections for that work, they struggled to pay rent or buy necessities, so they were essentially working as indentured servants. At this time there is a shortage of workers. You can tell businesses and corporations are getting desperate when they offer potential workers anything from an iPhone to thousands of dollars as sign on bonuses. It will get better for workers when out country starts r

The people like to be winners, but don’t like being on a losing team. It’s this way in sports and also politics. At this time it is the Democrats against the cult of Trump and the whipped GOP. The Democrats are winning at this point in President Biden’s administration, but the Democrats must pass Biden’s spending plan. The $4 trillion spending package has two parts: $2.3 trillion for jobs infrastructure and $1.8 trillion for an American Family Plan, which would subsidize child and elder care. This is a big winner for the Democratic Team, and offered in other developed countries. Biden is listening to Senator Bernie Sanders and seems to have learned the lessons from the Democratic defeats due to people grown tired of being taken for granted by their corporate-run Democratic party that had lost its way with Bill Clinton at the helm. Now, the GOP, after four years of doing nothing for the American people, want a $568 billion plan, which will do nothing, but make the Democrats look like

Amazon should be the training grounds for union organizing. All unions should send apprentices and shop stewards to do a week on the streets to help unionize Amazon. This could be the training grounds of what works and what doesn’t. The experience the young union people will help build our unions larger and better, and we will be training new leaders. The unions all need to come together as one to win this fight to put a union in one of the largest and richest companies in the world. There are playbooks out there, such as the one about Debs and the Pullman Railroad Strike. The Ford Motor Company employees’ sit-in strike. The big people and corporations have been brought down before. We must all band together like we did in the 1950s with the AFL/CIO, the two largest unions combined as one with one leader. A thorough investigation into the failure of the union attempt at Amazon in Alabama needs to be done before we continue. We can’t just blame the workers and community. We need to u

If new states were ratified into the Union, it would mean additional senators and could make it easier to pass laws that really help the 99 percent, like single-payer healthcare, voter rights, labor laws, better union protections, and a living wage. This is the precise reason republicans do not want Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. added. Now is the time to add these new states as we have Senator Bernie Sanders and the Squad there pushing for necessary reforms on the people’s behalf. First on the list should be Washington, D.C., with a population of 5,322,000, which is larger than Vermont with 629,932 or Wyoming with 582,328, according to 2020 Census. So, why is D.C. not already a state? One argument against making it a state is that the Founding Fathers wanted it separate as the capital of the United States, and it was formed as a federal district by using land from both Maryland and Virginia in 1790. Puerto Rico has been a U.S. territory since 1917 when Spain ceded the island to the

The Alabama workers must win their union fight with Amazon. This win has the potential to break the dam against the union busting agents, and allow the power of unions to rush forward and rain down on the nonunion corporate enslavement of workers by the Walmarts, retails stores and fast food industry and others. This win will be just like the snowball rolling down the hill, gaining momentum. It will just get bigger and bigger with the power of the workers. Unionizing the corporate fast food joints like McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King and the home health care workers and will give all these low-wage employees a chance for a living wage closer to what it should be of $15 to $24 an hour, which will carryover to hotel workers. By raising the wages to a living wage, it will also raise the wages of union workers like construction trade wages, which encompasses both union and non-union companies. Everyone wins when unions thrive. Unionizing Amazon will be the tipping point for all workers a

The filibuster must end in order to save our country. Some worry about what would happen if or when the GQP regains all the power again and what they will do with it and against the people. The Democrats must just do a better job and fight like hell for the people and not let the GQP get back into power. It is up to us, the unions and people who want healthcare for all, free education, a living wage, address climate change for clean air and water, the right to vote, and stop the never-ending wars. The filibuster is basically a form of obstruction and used to block legislation from proceeding to a vote. Republicans use this often, especially when the legislation will have a positive effect for the people or making voting easier or whenever Republicans want to have a tantrum. Those who do not pay attention to what happens in the Senate or don’t care so long as the immature Republicans are sticking it to the Democrats, and by extension, the people’s wellbeing, blame Democrats for not pa

It may be just me, but a lot of today’s union firefighters are thinking differently than they did in the old days about unions? Having spent 44 plus years in the industry, I can say without a doubt firefighters are heroes, brave, gutsy, tough, strong, a little nuts, but they pour their heart and soul into the job of saving others and their pets. So why don’t they do the same for themselves? In 44 years as a volunteer and district firefighter, the four words that still haunt me to this day are, “It’s all I got.” I’ve lost count of the times people begged us to protect their home because, “It’s all I got.” I was on a strike team and we were getting ready to start setting up on houses before the fire hit upon us and an old man came up to us and our fire engine and asked if we would protect his home. He said it wasn’t much, but “it’s all I got.” It wasn’t much, more of a ramshackle old place in the woods. The strike-team leader didn’t want us to spend time on the old place, but I promised

This new government administration has a lot of big and little things it can and must do to keep the voters on their side. First among them is that they must beat the virus and at the same time keep people sheltered and fed. This can be done by executive orders and pumping money into where it’s needed most. Yes, the Biden administration is doing a lot of good, but to reach the masses, it must go further. Start with helping unions by tightening up the National Labor Relations Board and its members and rules; and pass card check for unions, which would take the place of union elections and make it easier for workers to unionize. We need President Biden to declare a state of emergency and begin to address climate change to help save the planet while also creating new jobs in green energy, rebuilding our infrastructure with more eco-friendly products. There are a lot of products out there that can replace the old, more damaging products, like these few types recycled steel, using bamboo,

For a little history in the ways to control people read Joss Sheldon’s book, “Democracy: A User’s Guide.” He writes about the different types of governing bodies from democratic societies, which lasted for hundreds of thousands of years we went to gerontocracies, the rule by elders. Other ways to rule were the priests, sorcerers, prophets and the wealthy, who controlled land, enslaved people and all of the livestock.Then came the militias, who killed anyone who refused to bend to their will. The leaders named themselves “kings” then surrounded themselves with knights, secured their loyalty by giving them land and declaring themselves appointed by god with the divine right to rule, and secured their legacies by handing power down to their offspring. This was done during the age of feudalism and manorialism. Kings ruled over their lords, ladies, princes and priests. These nobles ruled over everyone else, and they all became rich by taking from the peasantry. Much like it is today. Then

With a new government in town, now is the time for big changes, which will get people thinking about good things instead of trying to destroy our democracy. Healthcare or Medicare should be for all, climate change has to be addressed and minimum wage of at least $24 to keep up with inflation or implementation of a universal basic income of $2,000 to supplement people’s incomes and stimulate the economy. This needs to be done now for by 2040 or sooner the 2.7 million truck drivers will be replaced by driverless trucks, and it will be up to the civilians to stay out of the way of these driverless vehicles, according to a recent NPR story. Vending machines are already taking the place of some stops and self-check-out lanes are taking the place of cashiers. Two million jobs were lost in human resources, finance and information technology and new research software means a single lawyer can now do the work of five hundred lawyers. There are fewer secretaries, file clerks, telephone operator

Why did all these people go to Washington, D.C.? Did they go just to break things? Or just because one person asked them to? Some say they went to take down our government. If that is true, then what type of rule or government do they want to replace it with? As outlined in Machiavelli’s The Prince: there are three kinds of government: principality, aristocracy and democracy. But, others say there are six types of government: three are good, principality, aristocracy and democracy; the three are bad are tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy. The good types are fragile and can easily slip into one of the bad. This happens when a democracy turns into anarchy, and aristocracy becomes an oligarchy or a principality becomes a tranny. An example of this slippage of one government becoming another could be seen in our own country last week. What if they had succeeded in their mission? What kind of government would we be ruled by today had they succeeded—anarchy? Some say democracy is the dictatorshi