Union Perspectives

Is it time we retired union workers with our nice pensions start paying back? Our union workers of old fought and died for our rights today so today’s retirees could live in comfort. Most of our retirees today did not have to spill blood to protect their jobs; hell, most of us only had to show up for work and pay our dues. Now our unions have just about vanished and on our watch. We might think hard about parking our golf carts, motor homes, and our boats and think about how we can pay our unions back and help rebuild the working class - the 99%. We need to support the OWS, who are there for the 99% by being on the streets, sacrificing at all costs and creature comforts for a better America. When things finally turn around and the unions go to the workers and ask them to join the unions, the workers will ask, ‘Where in the hell were the unions when we, OWS - the 99% - were in the streets?’ They have a right to ask that question. OWS - the 99% - are fighting for our members, our chi...

Remember all of the 9/11 grants that were available to protect us from the terrorists? Billions of dollars that were granted to government agencies, such as fire departments, and city and count law enforcement. We, the workers, paid for all that equipment to fight terrorism -- or so we thought. It now seems that a lot of that money was and has been used against us, the 99% who paid for it. I don’t think we, the 99%, understood that it would be used against us and that this has been planned for a long time. It stands to reason that the GOP knew that their control over this country would come to an end and that that 99% would awaken to what the GOP had done to this country by their insatiable greed and to the destruction of the American Dream. The GOP and well-equipped law enforcement were ready for us except for one thing -- they can’t find the leaders of the 99%. So, instead, they spew barrels of pepper spray on the protesters and for that they will lose. This is the Patriot Act ...

Finding biographical material about IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) writers is a difficult task for most Wobblies, the movement was more important than recording the lives of individual members. There was a cult of anonymity extended to the manner in which many Wobblies signed their own names, such as JBH, The Rambler, Card No. 34528, Denver Dan, Red, or Just Wob. Does this look familiar? Today’s young ‘Internet’ people are using made up names to maintain their anonymity, and this maybe one reason why OWS is still going strong. Its detractors have no one person they can vilify and use as an escape goat. With this in mind, how long will it be before states deploy laws against the Occupiers, as they did during the Wobblies’ heyday? Wobblies were prosecuted under the Syndicalism Laws. Syndicalism, in this case, refers to the practice of organizing workers into unions to protect their rights and interests as workers. Today, we call Syndicalism Laws the Patriot Act. Under the S...

Missed Opportunity Labor has missed many chances to enhance the labor movement over the last 66 years. One was when the AFL and the CIO merged - this was a great opportunity to start a nationwide organization drive. Our membership was high and labor had money to do the work but the AFL-CIO President George Meany, instead, chose to sit on his hands. This was a lost opportunity to educate and welcome the young diversified work force. Another missed opportunity was the Vietnam antiwar protesters. Half of the labor organization was against the war and half supported it. We fought against each other and labor should have supported our youth and the student movement. Remember Kent State, Jackson State and Chicago? Once again, we lost a chance to support our then 99%ers. Now we have another chance to support our young and our military personnel returning home from the wars: Iraq and Afghanistan. Our present 99%ers are protesting for what labor has been advocating forever: a better life ...

The Declaration of Independence says that government is not sacred, that it is set up to give people an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that if it fails to do this, we have a right to “alter or abolish it.” It wasn’t long before the Declaration of Independence became an embarrassment to the Founders. Soon after the signing soldiers under George Washington spoke out about how the rich were profiting from the war. Then to exasperate things further, the Continental Congress, in 1781, voted to give half pay for life to the officers of the Revolution, and nothing to the enlisted men (the original 99%ers). There was a protest and Washington ordered two young soldiers shot as an example to the other protesters. Barely five years old, the Declaration’s statement that all men are created equal was already being ignored and poor people, who thought they were fighting for themselves and their new country, found out that the war was not fought to benefit them, b...