Union Perspectives

Labor needs to back causes that the middle class and the Have Nots’ need to better their lives, like minimum wage of $15 an hour, free healthcare and college, right to form a union and a healthy world to live in. Unions also need to stand up with the students who want safe schools to go to. Let’s not make the same mistake labor made during the Vietnam war. Labor sided with the war and against the protesters, who were also mostly young people, and some unions members even participated in beating these protestors. This was a shameful day for labor. This time we need to get it right. These young people are our new leaders and will soon be able to vote. So far, these young people look like fighters, which is what unions need—voters and new blood, who know how to fight for their rights and what is fair. Labor missed its chance when Occupy Wall Street was protesting. Now we have March for Our Lives. Let’s not let this chance slip by. This is ready made for labor’s support. Unions are a...

The boiling pot of discontent, fear and confusion is slashing over the lid fueled by the election, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock protests, wage inequality, and a lot of these things are the residue of Occupy Wall Street, which did not solve much, but did start the pot boiling. Most of these concerns are not just felt here in the U.S., but are concerns for the world over. Then there is the wars, which are never ending and propagate the immigrant and refugee onslaught of the world causing more discontent wherever they go. Most of this is the result of greed by the world’s 1 percent, also known as the 1/10th percent, which is destroying the democracies of the world. So, what happens when the pot boils over? Does it extinguish the fire? Or will the world’s oligarchies try to slam a lid on the pot, and if they try the pot will blow up. We already are seeing terrorists’ activities the world over. Just how long will it be until terrorism is here in the U.S. as an everyday event? The s...

We are headed for another Occupy Wall Street movement and this time there is another army called the Bernie’s Army, people across the U.S. willing to fight for what’s right, thanks to Bernie Sanders. Now we just need more leaders like Bernie and it is time they step forward. The time is ripe and not only here in the U.S., but the world over. Just look at the union busting going on here and throughout the world. The fight between the corporations/oligarchies who are awash in hundreds of millions of dollars are permitted to loot and pillage the last shreds of wealth, human capital, and resources and the Commons of nations where the poor do not eat and there are no jobs, where the sick die and children go hungry. Now that there is a split in the parties, we must pull the other side into our movement. We want the police and National Guard to know that we understand they are not the 1 percent. The goal is not to get every cop and National Guard member, but to get enough to have a division. ...

Why do wins and gains for the wage slaves turn into losses? To understand this one only has to look back to the old International Workers of the World (IWW) and the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and countries like Ukraine and the Arab Spring. The old IWW used the soapbox approach on street corners to arouse exploited workers to a spectacular and sudden fight for free speech, higher wages. And for ten years they had wins, but then failed to hold their membership. Just like the IWW, OWS also had wins in getting the 99 percent fired up over wages, Wall Street greed and they had cell phones all over the U.S. to motivate people, but again OWS failed to hold the people together. Even countries like Ukraine who fought a hell of a fight and changed its government, and now it is in trouble as it careens toward a civil war. The Arab Spring, which again changed its government, but now are in trouble. Why is it these groups didn’t plan or ever think about what they will do when or if they win, like put...

Unions need to become very unpredictable in their overall strategy and their tactics. They need to become ghosts with no financial assets, which would give the ghost leaders no fear of losing assets in a court of law and would be hard if not impossible to link responsibility to a ghost. This type of warfare tactic was adapted from the Scythian king and used against the Persian Army of Darius in the early 6th century. Darius lost and retreated without ever having a chance to fight because he could not get King Scythian to stop and fight and the reason for this was because the Scythians had no cities or cultivation for their enemies to destroy or take. They had nothing to defend, no assets to protect. If unions took on this practice, today’s court of law would have nothing to take from unions. Scythian said killing the enemy is easy, but it’s the finding of him that is difficult. This is as true today as ever. Your enemy will not meet you on your own terms, only on his and this is why as...

Will labor ever have modern day leaders like William D. Haywood, Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Daniel De Leon, Father Thomas J. Hagerty, Frank Little, Gurley Flynn or Joe Hill? Some of these people were members of the International Workers of the World also known as “Wobblies.” Some were also called “soapboxers” because they were the people who fought for freedom of speech and won the right to stand on a street corner and just talk about whatever they wanted. Most of these people were the voices of labor and talking about all workers in all industries the world over. So, today we should be using these hard earned rights to point out that the rich are getting richer and refusing to understand or respond to the growing disaster that they are creating. Today’s low-wage workers working full time earn a combined$14 billion while Wall Street took in $28.5 billion in just bonuses. We must take a page from history and look at the Gilded Ages of the oligarchies, which was turned around by the wag...

Why can’t the Democrats have a Tea Party-like movement like the GOP—this movement would be the proletariats and wage slaves and normal, intelligent people who will fight for higher wages, fight against inequality of the lower 47 percent. Yes, it would be nice if there was a strong labor party and maybe there will or could be one day, but in the meantime why not use the tools that are there, which is the brand name Democrats/progressive and the brand name is about all you would get for you would not get much money from corporations or even the Democratic Party. So it would be funded by the wage slaves and some smart forward thinking unions or maybe even new unions. Yes, it would be much easier to just go with a socialist party, but to do that and win there would have to be a lot of education on what socialism actually is and what it isn’t—communism. At this time I think there could be a parallel program, which would support each other and benefit the Democratic Party and the 47 percent....

Where are the Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street people have they been driven underground? Have they lost support? Lost interest? Are they in jail? Are they still alive? Or are they just beaten and scared of what the 1 percent can do to them? Of all these things I could understand, but if they have been bought off by the 1 percent, that would be the cardinal sin and I would hope for all the world’s 99 percent that being bought off is not the case. They must be given credit of starting the conversation about wage and life style inequality between the 1 percent and 99 percent. And even with other distractions, such as the revolutions in Arab Spring, Ukraine, Liberia, and Afghanistan. Of course, the USA’s local problems, plus Palestine and Israel, are distractions, but even with these distractions the main cause of the problems for 99 percent people are all the levels of inequality between the 99 percent and the 1 percent. The 1 percent with all its money and power hording will continue to...

What do the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the $15 to $16 an hour have in common? Some of things, I see, are the education of the young activists, who are discovering that their fight has been fought before, and will always have to be fought. The inequality of good wages and standard of living is now wider than in past years. The fight is never ending. It is like the country of Holland fighting the sea to keep it back. They can never rest, and the Dutch accept the fight as a way of life f or the alternative is the end of life as they know it. This is the mentality our young wage slaves must learn in order to survive in the employment world. The fight is a very long and never ending one. When we let up on this fight, we end up where we are today, fighting our way out of the gutters once again. The Occupy movement was just round one and a winner for the wage slaves because it gave people a confidence boost and education, which started a conversation on what is wrong with the USA and the ...

While our service men and women were serving overseas for the past 10 years, some losing their lives, and some enduring terrible injuries with lots of emotional injuries, as well. There is no doubt that they have given all they had. While our service members were doing their best we at home let the oligarchies (form of government where a small group of rich people have all the power), big corporations and Wall Street have just about ruined our country. When our service people return home what will we have to offer them? There are no jobs, the economy is in ruins and the Republicans party has vowed to block President Obama on all his efforts to improve our situations in the hopes of making him a one-term president. Our veterans gave all and we, the citizens, went to sleep and let the GOP lobbyists and the oligarchies buy state governments, which promptly began taking away workers’ rights, voters’ rights and even women’s rights. I don’t think this is what our military personnel were ...

How will and how will the corporate GOP start demonizing our name 99ers? The 99ers are the people in the streets of New York and seventy plus cities across this nation. We are in a class war with the top 1 percent of the nation who owns 40 percent nation’s wealth, and the top 1 percent of Americans take home 24 percent of the nation’s income. They, the top 1 percent of Americans, owns half of the country’s stocks, bonds and mutual funds. They also have, with all that wealth, only 5 percent of the nation’s personal debt, and the top 1 percent is taking in more of the nation’s income since the 1920s. If this is not enough to infuriate us, the 99ers, then we only have to look at what the 1 percent, such as the Koch brothers and other billionaires are doing to us, such as buying entire states from governors to all elected politicians, attorney generals and judges. They then use these positions to break unions and deprive 99ers of their voting rights. They would like to get rid of child l...

People hit the streets in New York’s financial district, Wall Street, and it’s about time the labor unions joined in. It will take all of us to win this “class warfare.” Whether they, the protesters, know it or not they are showing the old Wobbly (Industrial Workers of the World or IWW) Spirit. In their passion and their organization skills. The occupation of a financial district is only beginning for it is going to spread across the country. This is our American Autumn, the same as the Arab Spring in the Middle East protests; and yes, it is class warfare and we should not be manipulated by the GOP and corporations into saying that it is not class warfare. The GOP and corporations are afraid that if we realize and understand what is going on then we will have an American Autumn, and start taking back our rights and start rebuilding our middle class by pulling the poor from the muck the GOP and corporations have pushed them into. I don’t know if our young organizers have studied th...