Union Perspectives

The position of the service industry on wages is that tips are a built-in part of the workers’ wages. This analogy is used by Marriott and other hotel/motel chains, plus fast food chains, and restaurants. These are huge and very profitable corporations so how did these corporations convince their customers that they should be subsidizing their workers? There is nothing wrong with giving a little extra for good service whether at a restaurant or hotel, but these workers should be paid a living wage and not be dependent upon tips because there are people out there who don’t tip or tip so little, like the 20 cents an NFL football player left recently, that the worker is being screwed over twice. It is not the tipper’s responsibility to ensure the workers receive a decent wage, it is the employer’s. The corporations should not be left off the hook by trying to make or guilt their customers into picking up the tab, like Marriott is doing. It is leaving envelops in the room of paying custom...

The attacks on unions and working people are pushing people to the brink of civil resistance just like the 1920s and 1930s when there was a strike or work shut downs every day which involved shootings, killings. It was stopped by people who worked with unions and the creation of the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which was a board formed to settle differences between labor and corporations. However, the NLBR has been decimated and no longer works for the workers. The next place for workers—the last stop—is the U.S. Supreme Court, which has been subverted by the anti-worker GOP-backed, Bible-thumping, and biased-in-favor-of-oligarchies justices: Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts and Kennedy. So where do the workers go? They will go back to what works: civil resistance. It will succeed because the diverse base of participants can outlast the armed struggles used against them. Oligarchies think they have the upper hand because they can buy others to attack the resisters, but this wi...