Robots—Pensions—Organizing
Labors must organize millions more union members. At this point labor is doing nothing, but running out the clock on the very existence of our power, which is the people.
The combined union assets is at $35 billion, but the total assets by collectively bargained pension pensions is trillions of dollars, according to labor writer Hamilton Nolar.
We also must rethink how we invest our pension money and who is using it for union pensions. We are discovering union pensions have been and are financing labor’s own destruction when used by union/labor busting corporations.
Maybe our union pensions should be used like the Southern California Service Employees International Union Local 721, which is pushing for the establishment of a Los Angeles Public Bank, which provide lower cost for affordable housing and more work.
What and how is labor to deal with robots? Robots are displacing workers and their wages? One way to counter this would be to tax robots just like a human worker and this could be used to finance a universal basic income for the displaced workers.
Labor needs to start using the pension money like a weapon against labor busting corporations. There are trillions of dollars that could be used in this fight or at least stop the money from working against labor unions. Pensions are benefiting Wall Street more than the workers. Unions need to do a better job of vetting where pensions are invested because some companies invested in now oppresses the working class, according to Nolan.
Unions must think creatively about the staggering pool of capital they command to get the most benefit for members. It’s our money so trusting predatory investment firms with our money to invest in antiunion corporations makes no sense.
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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