Union Perspectives

Unions are coming. The workers worldwide are rising up to fight for better wages, healthcare , pensions, union rights, housing and climate change. They are also tired of wars and the exorbitant cost of education. People the world over want a government that represents the 99 percent and not the 1 percent who just want more money to buy more power. This is a real class warfare and we, the people, will win with strong unions, which work and support all workers, unionized or not. At this time, we have the auto workers fighting over tier workers who work by another worker doing the same job but for a lower wage. This is done not only to save GM money, but also to cause division among the work force. The General Motors workers won because all the workers stayed together. Then the Black Jewel miners are still fighting for their wages. They will win if all with a message of solidarity, money, which can be sent to: With Love From Harlan P.O. Box 1621 Harlan, KY 40831. Checks should be payabl...

One way to have less wars is to finance the wars by taxes from the corporations who stands to profit from the destruction at the time the war is initiated, and to bring back the draft of men and women of all levels of society with few if any deferments. The money saved would pay for the free education and single-payer healthcare.  Then we could also focus on nonmilitary tools of national security policies, and enhance our homeland security. All wars should be pay as you go and not put on the credit card, as President George W. Bush did his invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which takes away the funds that support our social needs at home, for our people, and country. The trillion dollar cost that results fro these wars should be spent here and not passed on to our future generations. Everyone needs to understand the carnage of war, and at this time most Americans are insulated from the effects here and abroad. These wars are having a huge economic effect on the economy. The amount of...

Why would billionaires feel they need to steal and hide money from the 47 percent from the Have Littles when the Have Littles have nothing in comparison? Is greed a sickness? If this is a class war then why do we, the Have Littles, keep sending out sons and daughters to war to protect the 1 percents assets the world over? It should be obvious to the Have Littles that the 1 percent do not care about their countries, and do not want to pay their share in taxes, but they want us to spill our blood and forfeit our lives to protect their interests and corporations. Do you think the poor in these countries benefit in any way by all this money is being hoarded in their countries? With the exposed murky world of shell companies by the Panama Papers, we can see the evidence of just how wealthy oligarchies conceal their money. Twelve current and former world leaders maintain offshore shell companies and we, here in the U.S., will find out who is not paying their taxes to support our country an...

Could the USA’s corporate capitalist system survive without wars? Probably not and terrorism is good for business. Terrorism will most likely never be defeated because it keeps profits high for the military industrial complex. The Paris attacks occurred on a Friday, when the Stock Market opened on Monday defense industry stocks, like Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop, Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Booz Allen Hamilton soared in anticipation of the coming weapons sales and security contracts. There will never be an elected person who wants to stabilize the world and have no wars or unrest. They will not get corporate backing for their elections if they went against these corporate giants. Since 9/11, five countries have disintegrated as nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The destruction of these countries were the result of direct American interventions. The fifth, Syria, came from a flood of U.S. arms to the so-called moderate rebels. The forth, Yemen, ...

Why did the U.S. back the Turkish government to up the war on the Kurds? Was it just to save jet fuel by having a base in Turkey? If so then money is more important than Kurdish lives and when the Kurdish fighters are the only ground troops who are kicking the asses of the ISIS fighters. The Kurdish people have been divided into four places and they have been fighting this injustice for the last 100 years and the Kurds have never given up. The air strikes that we use to fight ISIS have to be coordinated by someone on the ground, which at this time is the Kurds. There needs to be a payoff for the only ground troops who are fighting and winning against ISIS. The Kurds would have had their own country except for what the U.K. did after World War I. The UK at the end of WWI denied the Kurds a homeland which turned the Kurds into nomads, but they have never given up on a homeland for there are 30 million oppressed nationality who struggle to survive in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. To ma...

Low wages and debt go together to make the 1 percent very, very rich. To begin with, the rich pay the wage slaves very little, which then promotes the toilers to use debt to survive. Case in point, with no extra cash for repairs and a broken washing machine, for example, the cost to repair the machine is a one-time large cost that seems greater than buying a new machine for a low monthly payment. This way, the 1 percent makes more money in two ways and makes the toilers actual wage slaves. This enslavement starts very early with school debt so that young workers start out in debt with an average of $31,000 to $100,000 and higher depending on the field of study, which, without a very good paying job, leaves them as wage slaves for many years. We are nearing the end of economic/industrial growth, primarily, but not only for ecological reasons. When growth stalls, lending opportunities disappear. Since money is essentially lent for existence, debt levels increase faster than the supply ...

Are the workers and countries of the world returning to tribal governments of the old days where countries were made up of family tribes and religions? Just look at places like the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan all are reverting to the past like Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Turkey and the list goes on. Are the large countries starting to fade? Are they getting too large to defend or control? Are governments too polarized to govern? Has the 1 percent billionaires of the world gained control and only want more money and power over the workers? And if this is the case it could be the tipping point for the loss of a civilized world and the beginning of a world filled with ISIS types who just hate and kill for their ideology. When money and power is worshipped over the good of people, there will be a revolt and will it be peaceful or a bloodletting? The days of large countries dominating small countries are over. Just how long can the U.S. hang onto our satellite countrie...

Labor needs a worldwide movement and now is the time for the world’s labor and the proletarians are ready. Labor needs to be unified, such as Germany, South Africa and Brazil. The U.S. unions need to have a better unified political agenda. The U.S.at this time is ranked at the bottom in workers’ rights by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). We rank four out of five in ITUC’s categories, and the ones who are five have no rule of law, like Somalia and Ukraine. The fours also include countries like Iraq, Peru, and Mexico. This should be a reality check for the U.S. unions. This was started when the AFL and the CIO merged in 1955 and never could agree on a common strategy for the common good of labor, but maybe labor is starting to wake up to the reality that labor needs to bring everyone into its fold. A good start is the $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage, which will probably be won by the people using Sycthanian tactics with significant structural reform in American politi...

The toilers of the world fighting just to stay alive in countries like Ukraine, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Iraq, Turkey, Greece and the USA. What would stop all or most of the evil that hovers over the heads of these wage slaves would be good paying, safe jobs, good governments, which looks out for the toiler. But in order to get there, the world needs good peace-loving and smart leaders, not leaders or government officials who are bought by corporations. All toilers need to be educated in labor and government history, and must pay attention to what is happening with labor on a daily basis. One way is through the Militant newspaper and the column, “On the Picket Line” by Maggie Trowe, which relates the labor news from all over, like the dockworkers in the U.S. or chicken butchers in Israel, Walmart and Kellogg workers in the U.S., Canadian grocery workers and the steelworkers union is in a fight with Chevron at the Richmond refinery in the U.S. Jim Payne, Steelworkers Local, s...

Working people should look very long and hard when there is talk of splitting a state or country or when they are thinking of a coup or changing a country’s leaders. First, follow the money to find why and who is it—a corporation behind it. Is another country behind it? Is it an old or new political party behind it? Then what are the benefits to the wage slave? Will it be a better life, more food, better healthcare, job safety, voting rights, better education, more job selections, and if none or all of these are not on the plus side then we might start asking questions before supporting a candidate, political party or ballot measures. The workers might end up in a religious controlled country or state with an unbearable life or in a civil war like Syria or Iraq or Libya or some other country like Somalia. Even here in the U.S. there is a faction that wants to split California into two states, one of which would be called the State of Jefferson. There is a symbol they use, XX, which a...

Old anti-union and protesters’ tactics still work and are used by the corporations and large and small governments, cities, counties, state and federal. A tactic from the old days was to keep workers and workers’ families from getting together and comparing notes. The bosses worked people sun up to sun down six to seven days a week. Today, workers work two to three jobs at a time. They also used people’s ethnicity to keep people apart, such as the Irish, Asians, blacks and browns. The idea was to keep the workers from forming relationships so the bosses thought if they could keep the workers overworked, uneducated and suspicious of each other. They, the 1 percent, control the masses. The only place toilers could go and be together was church, which was again split into different religions and should be taken with a grain of salt for many were controlled by the rich. Today’s protests we see the Wall Street protesters and the police tactics, which are getting closer and closer to our m...

Why is there so much unrest and fighting in the world? Is it just a coincidence that most of the impact is on the toilers? And who or what is to blame? It is not the wage slaves for they are just barely getting by and in some cases being savaged by raped, killed or sold into slavery. It is not only the Middle East or South America or Ukraine, it is everywhere. So what are the commonalities? Oil, gas, precious metals and gems, water and among resources, which then equals money and power. If the governments do not respect the ownership of the commons or its people power than the oligarchies will buy some of us, give guns and take what they want, which is all of it. There is never enough for these greedy people, and once the 1/10 of the 1 percent of the billionaires beat the toilers. They will turn on each other, but we, the workers, will be the ones who are forced to do the fighting and killing while they sit back and watch like a sporting event. We already see this sporting event in t...

The leaderless world revolution and the armies are all around us just waiting for a trigger or tipping point to march and they are all leaders so how are they controlled? It looks, to me, like they have taken a look at history and have written a play book that has taken old tactics that worked and came up with new ones and with that they have added and use our new technology. What we are seeing is it is very hard to kill the snake when you cannot find its head. Brazil is a good example of a tipping point, upping the cost of public transportation that millions of low wage workers would have to pay and then humiliating one person by pepper spraying her in the face for no reason other than they think they can and get away with it. I wonder what the cops were thinking when they were pushed into the ocean up to their waists—power to the people. This is just the start of the Have All against the Have Some and Have Nots. For us, wage slaves, have a right to have a say and a right to an equa...

Missed Opportunity Labor has missed many chances to enhance the labor movement over the last 66 years. One was when the AFL and the CIO merged - this was a great opportunity to start a nationwide organization drive. Our membership was high and labor had money to do the work but the AFL-CIO President George Meany, instead, chose to sit on his hands. This was a lost opportunity to educate and welcome the young diversified work force. Another missed opportunity was the Vietnam antiwar protesters. Half of the labor organization was against the war and half supported it. We fought against each other and labor should have supported our youth and the student movement. Remember Kent State, Jackson State and Chicago? Once again, we lost a chance to support our then 99%ers. Now we have another chance to support our young and our military personnel returning home from the wars: Iraq and Afghanistan. Our present 99%ers are protesting for what labor has been advocating forever: a better life ...