Union Perspectives

President Obama has sold out unions’ pensions when he signed a must pass omnibus bill, which has the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. The bill strikes down an enshrined American ideal that money earned for a pension can’t be pulled out from under our feet like a rug once we retire. That promise, once codified in law, was upended by the passage of this reform act. This act will effect some 400,000 participants by cutting benefits for some retirees now, some up to 60 percent. This is the central state pension funds, which is predicted to be insolvent in 10 years and this fund is the canary in the mineshaft as similar multiemployer pension funds are now at risk. If these funds go bust, mortgages won’t be paid, prescriptions won’t be filled, utility bills and groceries will be a regular hardship. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell hates unions so there will be no hope there, and Hillary Clinton is no fan of unions either. This just leaves Bernie Sanders and no one is ...

If the U.S. and the world over ever want to see a robust middle class again there must be jobs where a worker earns a living wage and has a full-time job of at least 30 to 40 hours a week, which should be counted as a full time and eligible for benefits. Workers who have to work two or three jobs just to survive does not a life make. One must keep in mind that a minimum wage raise to $15 to $18 an hour will mean nothing if there is no union or way to fight for hours for even at 30 hours at $15 an hour is only $450 weekly gross. Employers cut hours, creating “McJobs,” but they keep hiring new workers—why? The answer is they are giving themselves a larger part–time pool, who are trained this way and if the wage slaves try to unionize employers think they will have union busters on hand. Also, the flexibility, which started about twenty years ago still works somewhat for white-collar workers, but is curse for blue-collar workers without a union because now the employers own the workers 2...

The 1% are at this time putting up legislation that is prohibits protesting or picketing outside of businesses or government buildings, which would just about shut down anything the 99% or unions are trying to do. Georgia has an anti-picketing bill that would ban all union pickets or gatherings outside of businesses. This is a huge throwback to the 1800-1930s. I wrote a blog entry, U.S. Supreme Court Giveth and Taketh, and in it I wrote about how the Supreme Court giveth and taketh away. Well, the courts are about to taketh away and all the gains that the IWW Wobblies fought and died for will be for naught. They must be turning in their graves. We must take back the courts for the working wage slaves if not there is no doubt that the wage slaves will become more temporary workers or workampers. Is this what we, workers, and retired people want to leave our children and grandchildren? Things will have to change and we must keep the right for free speech and the right to assemble at ...

~ Piranhas are prehistoric flesh-eating fish. ~ OWS are still doing the right thing by not giving in to what other people think they should be doing, such as specifying a leader, declaring who they are or what they want, which can then be attacked by the Right. Any little concession by OWS, will be looked upon with disdain. What the OWS 99% care about -- no one party nor one person -- will ever accomplish because no party or group of people will ever be in total agreement 100 percent of the time with what the 99 percent want, need or believe in. This is just a fact of human nature. What is needed to help alleviate the needs and wishes of the 99% is for all members of our law makers to take bites of what they believe in. If they could develop a piranha-type attack on the things which are detrimental to the 99% we can win. I’m not advocating that Democrats or OWS engage in behavior typical of Republicans, which is to eat their own, but to be more assertive or aggressive in some situa...