Union Perspectives

How did the USA lose so much ground in the economical struggle, which has destroyed the middle class? The fight between oligarchies and the commoners began when President Roosevelt started the New Deal, which came on the heels of the 1929 Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by the Robber Barons, the old oligarchies who destroyed the trade unions and the International Workers of the World (IWW) unions. With the IWW and the New Deal, the 99 percent came back, but forgot that in every war when one side loses they sometimes just go underground to harass and rebuild. This is what the Koch brothers did and what the billionaire party has been doing and their Holy Grail was getting control of the U.S. Supreme Court. Remember, the U.S. Supreme Court gives and takes away the Citizens United decision took the election process away from the workers and gave it to the one-tenth of the 1 percent. They have all the money and can buy or defeat any candidate. Their long-term economic goa...

For decades corporations and the GOP have pressured the U.S. Postal Service to privatize. They want to break the postal union, which is one of America’s oldest and public institutions and provides employment to 574,000 people of color, women and the disabled. The postal service have an admirable record in its treatment and hiring of its workers. The postal service is the second largest employer in the United States, behind Wal*Mart. The postal service generally pays for itself, but does not make huge profits and with the economy today it is losing money. The main reason for this loss is that the federal government under George W. Bush required the postal service to make huge payments 75 years in advance, which was $50 billion over what it should have paid, to cover the union’s health and pension benefits. If the postal office hadn’t been forced to make that overpayment, it would not have the problem its facing today. Leading the GOP charge is southern California’s Darrell Issa, a c...