Union Perspectives

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 ...

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...