Union Perspectives

People hit the streets in New York’s financial district, Wall Street, and it’s about time the labor unions joined in. It will take all of us to win this “class warfare.” Whether they, the protesters, know it or not they are showing the old Wobbly (Industrial Workers of the World or IWW) Spirit. In their passion and their organization skills. The occupation of a financial district is only beginning for it is going to spread across the country. This is our American Autumn, the same as the Arab Spring in the Middle East protests; and yes, it is class warfare and we should not be manipulated by the GOP and corporations into saying that it is not class warfare. The GOP and corporations are afraid that if we realize and understand what is going on then we will have an American Autumn, and start taking back our rights and start rebuilding our middle class by pulling the poor from the muck the GOP and corporations have pushed them into. I don’t know if our young organizers have studied th...

The thirty-two GOP governors were elected and then they got together with ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), the Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers to come up with a strategy to destroy their only competition -- organized labor. We can put people on the ground and raise some money to get people elected that will protect workers. Our question should be: Why in the hell we did not know or see what they were planning? Or did some of us know and thought it was too implausible? If we had paid attention to or remembered our labor history, specifically the air traffic controllers, we would have known the GOP eats their own. The air traffic controllers union supported Ronald Reagan and he fired the lot of them. Since President Roosevelt implemented the Social Security Act, the GOP has wanted to kill it. Today, they are making their hardest push to destroy it. Remember, the GOP symbol is an elephant and elephants never forget. Just look at what the GOP corporations have ...

The California Assembly approved a bill, SB 126, that would punish farmers if they are found to have interfered with union elections. SB126 by Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Democrat from Sacramento, would automatically certify a farm workers’ union. This bill is a remedy for election misconduct by growers. Lets all union members get behind SB 126 and let Governor Jerry Brown know we support it. The predecessor to SB 126 was vetoed by Governor Brown. He has another chance to redeem himself. Let’s put pressure for we need some new tools in our tool bag to organize. SB 126 falls under the Agricultural Labor Relations and amends sections 1156.3, 1158, 1160.4, and 1164 of the Labor Code relating to employment.

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...

At the risk of sounding like a conspirator, please consider the following: The GOP are filing lawsuits against the health care. They are saying that you cannot force people to pay into the health care system despite this being their idea to begin with. The GOP is intent on taking this challenge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (USSC), five members of which are bought and paid for by corporations. If they win, this will be very bad for the working-class people for this will only be the beginning. If the GOP wins in this effort, they will go after the Holy Grail -- Social Security. Once they get the Social Security issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, the GOP will argue that it is illegal to force people to pay into their retirement plan -- Social Security. They will win at the USSC because the power is on their side. The GOP will offer the alternative of privatizing Social Security, which will put all the money into the hands of the GOP’s other best friend, Wall Street. If he...

Labor has few places where we can call attention to the needs of the workers. One of the places that unions do have control is the Longshoremen; they control the docks, the shipping out and the goods coming in from China or wherever. This is a very important high ground for labor for when being attacked, you want the high ground (Art of War). Is this why there is now dissension on the docks of Longview, WA. As I understand it, a new company took over the dock and brought in another so-called union to do the work. The Longshoremen’s union is fighting back very hard, in the tradition of the Wobblies, to keep their work. What and why did this happen? Is this a divide and conquer, antiunion, GOP-corporation-driven strategy? We do not need this at this time. If it is just union driven, our union leaders need to step in and resolve this conflict. If it is antiunion driven then labor needs to cut them off at their knees. The Wobblies would not have stood by and allowed this to happen. Do ...