Union Perspectives

Unions must be smarter when they end their contracts in order to have more power at the table. The Holy Grail would be if all unions contacts ended at the same rate nationwide. To start this we would let the local labor councils like the one in Shasta County in far northern California, which has the Five Counties Council. This council includes represents the unions of school, water, fire districts and cities and counties. The plan would be to get all the labor unions within the different entities to have their contracts end on the same date or as close together as possible so the employees of cities, districts and county would have more power together than alone. County and cities usually divide up the departments and not all are under one union and this benefits the government agencies, not the employees. If the different unions negotiated to end the contracts at a predetermined date, the Five Counties Council could arrange a walkout if needed and the power would be back with the w...

The U.S. Supreme Court has given to labor and it has taken from labor. In Feb.26, 2018, they will be taking from labor and their decisions will destroy labor’s membership and bankrupt unions financially. The Court could then allow workers who have paid union dues to seek refunds from union dues already paid, which would drive a stake into the heart of labor unions. After three tries, in 2012, 2014 and 2016, the high court is poised to reverse its own 40 year precedent and strike down the Fair Share Fees as unconstitutional. The 1977 ruling said workers did not have to pay for unions’ political activity. The verdict expected in June of this year would allow workers to pay nothing toward union dues, but still receive the union protections. This could force unions to have to raise union dues on those who remain or lose clout in states, such as California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, in the public workers, such as law enforcement, firefighters, teachers, government ...

In the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty are we seeing the handprint of the U.S. oligarchies? Are the U.S. oligarchies pushing the Ukraine government to slash mining jobs by selling off or shutting down state owned mines, cutting social benefits and carrying out other austerity measures to shore up profits for the capitalists and meet loan conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund? Despite the fact that austerity has been proven time and again that it does not work. Once again, the toilers at the bottom are the ones to take the hit and the fight even carries over to the wage slaves in Russia where U.S. sanctions are squeezing food prices; meat and poultry prices have skyrocketed by 17 percent. It is just like all wars where the wage slaves are the ones who give their lives for the oligarchies of the world. This is where unions must be strong. It is the only hope for the families of the Ukrainian and Russian poor. These fights are worldwide, such as with the Kurds, Turkey, Gr...

We need to get our shit together, and unless we are together we will continue to be stomped on by the 1 percent. One way to get our act together is organize our efforts to keep track of what the different organizations are doing, a clearing house of sorts. The workers of the world must expand and reinforce the war on inequality. The workers must carve out some of the cash that the oligarchies and corporations are hording. The wage slaves of the low wage jobs will have to force wage hikes by strikes, walkouts and withholding their labor. If you are making minimum wage, you probably can’t fill up a gas tank even at $3 a gallon, the average tank would be about $54—about a day’s work. So, minimum wage workers walkout will hurt the fast food, Walmart corporations’ executive officers more than you for you need the money, they worship money and they have to report to stockholders, which can get them fired. You just missed a day of work, or didn’t have work the day of the walkout, but their ...

The true wage slave is a good union worker who usually serves a four to five year apprenticeship then begins his or her career in the building trades or other type of specialty work, such as a machinist. Once they finished their apprenticeship they are invested in their pensions, and, in most cases, with a retirement at around the age of 52 to 55 years old. If they leave the trade they cannot draw their pension until they reach 65, which keeps stability in the work force. Part of the unions’ responsibility is to ensure workers’ keep current with their training, keeps them healthy with healthcare, and even providing substance abuse care for members—so in essence unions create the perfect wage slaves. With these benefits in place, it makes it very hard to leave a union job hence unions create dedicated wage slaves and a stable work force. So why do corporations think destroying the unions is good for business? When the very people who support businesses are the ones who are getting thei...

To save capitalism as we know it today we must not get to the point where the world has an unconsumed surplus of products. What has kept this from happening so far is that we and others have been unloading the surplus on other countries, and to this we help develop the resources by shipping our jobs to these countries. We then extend this process to all countries on the planet until every country is producing every year and every day and an unconsumed surplus builds up, which corporations cannot dispose of in other countries. The reason for this is that corporations have raped and pillaged every country on earth of its cheap labor. Now you may ask, how do you dispose of the surpluses to keep the capitalist consumer system working? We’re already seeing signs that in the profits of some of the big box stores the profits are going down. One reason is that the ‘have nothings’ or ’have very little,’ the proletarians, have no purchasing power because of very low wages. Here in the USA, the s...