Union Perspectives

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Now is the Time to Prepare

I hope that I am wrong, but what I see at this time is our unions are going to be in the fight of their existence. This is the most perilous time of our life. The life we had is threatened like never before. Unions are the largest organized group of people who can save our country if things keep going the way they are heading at this time. We need to all stand together for power, but we each must prepare and plan to take care of ourselves and our families. We can fight the big fight and not be distracted by worry about things that can and should already be taken care of. For instance, stashing at least one month’s pay and at least a month or even a year’s worth of food, whether the food is staples (pasta, rice, canned goods) and meat or chicken in the freezer. Keep your vehicles' tanks full and if possible a gas can full. It’s in your best interest to also save money for house or rent payments plus extra. This is not new thinking for us old trade workers who had to prepare when...

Pensions Are Our Money

Robots—Pensions—Organizing Labors must organize millions more union members. At this point labor is doing nothing, but running out the clock on the very existence of our power, which is the people. The combined union assets is at $35 billion, but the total assets by collectively bargained pension pensions is trillions of dollars, according to labor writer Hamilton Nolar. We also must rethink how we invest our pension money and who is using it for union pensions. We are discovering union pensions have been and are financing labor’s own destruction when used by union/labor busting corporations. Maybe our union pensions should be used like the Southern California Service Employees International Union Local 721, which is pushing for the establishment of a Los Angeles Public Bank, which provide lower cost for affordable housing and more work. What and how is labor to deal with robots? Robots are displacing workers and their wages? One way to counter this would be to tax robots just like a h...

National Strike Before It's Too Late

Is it time for a national strike plan? Trump is destroying the union rights of thousands of workers by stripping union rights from six federal agencies, like the National Weather Service, NASA, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security Environmental Protection Agency by ending collective bargaining and taking over the office spaces used by unions. Trump has said to just ignore contracts for employees in specific unions. So federal workers who lost rights can no longer fight agencies over contract violations, such as safety and meal allowances. Workers are being fired without cause. Government workers are the core of labor’s power base and there has been no push back. The next thing they’ll go after is prevailing wage laws, which will hurt the non-workers for they will no longer receive the prevailing, which is the same as union wages, but the union workers will still get their union wages and benefits. However, will they fa...

Time for New & Younger Politicians

On June 27, 1905, Father Hegarty’s preamble to the International Workers of the World constitution opens with this sentence: “The Working class and the employing class have nothing in common.” So why are the old Democrats so worried about old guard Democrats so worried about taxing the billionaires? There is always another billionaire to replace one if should one move on from buying votes. The average fortune of the billionaire class is $5.3 billions an increase from $200 million in 2024. Social Justice is not possible without leveling the colossal accumulation of wealth and power that makes a mockery of the idea that we live in a democracy. The workers and unions must declare a class war and fight for what we want and need: good union jobs, four-day work weeks, good pensions, vacation time, healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs, elder care, free education up to an associates degree. The corporations we work for are the ones who benefit the most because they get better and hea...

It's Up To Us

The AFL/CIO needs to start kicking some union ass. All unions must start having meetings and having union-oriented speakers and focus their meetings on their union history and struggles to get started and how to keep our unions. It's up to us. Unions did not just happen. There was blood spilled in the streets and many spent time in jail, and some even died for the union cause. Men, women and children were burned alive in tents, like at Ludlow, Colorado. Our union members’ families need to know what is going to happen with the GOP in charge they are out to destroy our unions. There is no one coming to our rescue. Forbes identified 902 billionaires on its 2025 list, but in 2024 the World Population Review reports there are 813. At what point does a person realize they have more money than they need or will spend in their life times. They want low wages, no benefits, no healthcare, not even Social Security. They want slave labor so they can become trillionaires. So at every meeting t...

Commonality Between Unions and Volunteer Firefighters

The volunteers/first responders, why do we need to keep them? Lots of union members are volunteer firefighters/first responders. One reason why is that when the State, counties, and cities go broke, the volunteers will still be responding because they don’t do this work as their primary job. There is a commonality between volunteer firefighters and union, both under attack. For them it’s about community and what they can do to make things safer and better for their families, neighbors, citizens, and visitors within that area. It’s about being selfless in a time when being greedy is becoming more commonplace in this country. But the state and federal governments are making this volunteerism harder with the regulations and laws that make no exemptions for the volunteer first responders. These same laws for full-time first responders are the same for volunteers, and it is not done for safety, but to weed out the volunteer first responders. The way it is done is to put more costs and requ...