Union Perspectives

When will the American people wake up and accept that all wars are engaged and fought to make money so a select few can become even richer? These unconscionable money grubbing warmongers do not care about the deaths of our young people or the innocent people considered collateral damage. President Woodrow Wilson admitted that the war to end all wars, the war to make the world safe for democracy had, in fact, been an industrial and commercial war, which earned the United States $30 billion in World War I. The workers of the old International Workers the World (IWW), seeing it for what it is, had little desire to enter into the war. They tried to educate the working class, even Thomas Paine and Michael Bakunin, who is considered is one of the key anarchist thinkers and activists of the 19th century, tried to warn citizens. The IWW viewed ignorance as an essential collaborator in the continued smooth functioning of governments. In his “Rights of Man” Paine proclaims reason and ignoranc...

Has labor forgotten the past or has it just been sleeping or both? For what is happening today had already happened in the years between 1919-1929. Overproduction in general, as a matter of fact, was one of the largest micro organizations whose poisons were set free by the economic crash of 1929. We prided ourselves on being the most productive nation on the planet. More and better goods were produced at greater speed and efficiency during the 1920s than at any time in our history. This was a good thing only if the producers could sell what they made or grew, and during the ‘20s they could not. They could not sell enough at home, wages were low and falling because of the loss of union power and membership so workers could not afford to buy the very goods they were producing. The triumph of the industrial Republicanism after the end of World War I had nearly killed the labor movement. But, after World War II, with the help of the New Deal and some new labor laws, labor fought back and ...