Union Perspectives

Unions need to study labor history and reboot using the lessons learned by what has worked and not worked. Labor must only support people who are trusted-worker friendly and be very careful not to make mistakes, such as some labor leaders did when they supported Ronald Reagan. The records of some of our presidents: Abraham Lincoln valued organized labor; Grover Cleveland sent the Army to suppress labor movements; Harry Truman challenged the right to strike on the coal and steel mines, and railways; Lyndon Johnson acted on issues of the work-place safety. Reagan, an FBI rat known as #T-10, destroyed the air traffic controllers union, PATCO. This union and many others have never fully recovered at this time. The wage slaves, have nots, have little, and used to have are forging a comeback, but even so, we still have some reluctant workers who are still slow to step up to the plate. To those people, they must remember this poem by Martin Niemoller: “First they came for the communists, an...

The idea that workers had rights in their workplaces equal to or exceeded the rights of management motivated union activity during the 1930s. According to historian Sidney Fine, during the sit-down strike at Flint, Michigan, in 1937, the United Auto Workers contended that the strike was legal because the workers enjoyed a property right in his/her job; and in striking, was therefore protecting his private property—his/her right to a job. The property right of the workers in their job, it was alleged, was superior to the right of the company to use its property as it saw fit since the workers had invested their lives in the company/plant only invested their money. Remember, it is labor that creates wealth and jobs. Money can do nothing without humans and this is where the power and this is where the power is found. Just look at the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution known as the Glorious Labor Amendment, which gives workers the right to strike to improve wages, working conditions,...