Union Perspectives

If you live in the following areas please consider attending one of the following Rally to Raise the Wage events with Senator Bernie Sanders and Reverend William Barber II. The rallies will be held Thursday, June 1, in Durham, NC at 7 p.m. in the Hayti Heritage Center; Friday, June 2, in Nashville, TN at 7 p.m. at the Fisk University gymnasium; and Saturday, June 3, in Charleston, SC at 4 p.m. at the Longshore’s Association Local 1422 union hall. The rallies are to bring attention to the substandard wages people are paid in these areas, and to educate people on why the federal minimum wage of $7.25 should be $17 an hour, incrementing upwards during a five year period. For those unfamiliar with Rev. Barber, he is, among other impressive things, a social activist, who has lead Moral Mondays, a civil rights protests on the steps of the North Carolina State Capitol Building since April 2013. Senator Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has long advocated for working families. Si...

The old cliche, “In all adversity there is a window of opportunity,” has never been more relevant than today. We are in a good position for the corporations and G.O.P. have shown their hands. Will we repeat the past and miss our opportunities again? You would think that if you were in a poker game and all the players’ showed their hands except for you that you could win if you stayed in the game; but history has shown that in the past labor has folded and left the game. Now, folding if your hand is not strong at the time is a good play sometimes, but to leave the game is not good poker if you know what their hands are every time. We know what their hands show for they have shown them in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan, and many other states. This isn’t the first time unions became complacent and failed to see what was going on around them. One has only to look back in history at the missed opportunities. Examples of missed opportunities include, the AFL-CIO’s plan t...