Union Perspectives

We now have another organization that will enhance the wage pollution for the wage slaves. Walmart started the wage pollution and then temporary agencies, which offer no healthcare or pensions, just temporary low wages. Now we have the online U.S. retail business, which did $197 billion in 2011. The workforce that does the work in these hundreds of warehouses are called “workampers.” Amalgamated advertises positions on websites that workampers frequent. This is just a modern version of what the old Wobblies had to do in the 1920s and ‘30s; only then, instead, of traveling from place to place living in trailers and motorhomes they rode railroad freight cars and camped in hobo camps called the Jungle, which we still have. The reason that the warehouse owners like workampers is they are temporary and will not stay year round that way by not staying in one place the workers do not have time to make friends, which could start unions. This is an old way to keep unions out for if people w...

The oligarchies, which back ALEC, are just kicking our butts. They have, by the way of legislation put our unions on the defensive, and we, union working people, are not helping ourselves by voting Republican and local unions raiding each other’s membership. What we need is more membership, not just recycling our old members, which is just a waste of time and weakening unions. The money and time should be spent on new members or trying to get more public support for our existing unions, policies and ideas. The oligarchies’ power of wealth distorts and is outflanking the democratic power of participation. We have to find a way to counter the oligarchy-funded plutocracy government that we are entering into or we will all become proletariats – wage slaves to the oligarchies. They are only worried about how to keep all their money and power to continue to buy politicians and appoint judges, who enforce the laws, which are written by the lobbyists for the politicians who vote to enact ...

It is time for retired workers to park their motor homes and dock their boats and hit the streets in support of other union workers and the 99%. Besides the support, it will be good physical exercise and give the participant a good feeling about their contributions to the cause. It might even be fun for the retirees, but for sure it would be pay back for us retirees who have healthcare and a good pension. I hope we have all been good union people, but I am pretty sure some of us have sinned and shopped at WalMart and not at our union stores! Most of us have not spent time in jail or been beaten up for being a union member trying to protect our jobs like our forefathers; but now our union brothers and sisters are getting framed on charges, such as the Longshore union in Longview, Wash., and the American Crystal sugar workers, who are locked out and cannot get unemployment. The sugar workers are trying to survive on $100 a week from the unions and their savings. They need food. And s...

It seem that what the 99% are working for is to try to take back our rights to the time of the Commons, which are the parks, housing, jobs, living wages and social safety nets – all things that the 99% have in common. This is not a new idea. Nature’s gifts have been the Commons’ property since the beginning. Thomas Paine declared that these gifts were the property of the human race and the land ordinance of the 1785 drafted by a committee of the Continental Congress that included Thomas Jefferson. They established a cooperative model for settlement of the West by setting aside one-square mile in every township as a Common property to be used to support a public school. The New Deal gave us Social Security; the GI Bill was also our Commons. We, the 99%, Commoners are now under attack and we, at this time, are being denied our basic needs of food, housing, healthcare, daycare, education, transportation, job training, paid vacation, old age benefits and common dignity in our lives. ...

There are now 23 work for less states in the U.S. How did this happen? Well, one way was how the legislation was worded. The bill was written as ‘The Right to Work.’ So who would vote against the right to work? For everyone has the right to work, but that was not the real issue. The real reason was to weaken labor unions by letting workers be in a union shop and not pay dues. A large group of union members voted for this not understanding what it would do to them. To make matters worse there are a lot of union members who joined the GOP because the GOP was successful in hijacking outdoor sports, such as hunting, fishing and shooting sports with the fear of gun laws, environmental laws and it was - and is – just bull. A lot of fire personnel, law enforcement and postal workers vote GOP. Maybe they thought that the GOP would not attack them. How did that work for the Air Traffic Controllers? Now the most recent attacks are on the civil workers in Arizona, New Hampshire, Utah and Ca...

American Legislative Exchange Council is pushing the union busting resolutions to make states “right to work” states. Dr. Martin Luther King had said was one of the greatest frauds ever perpetuated on workers. What ‘right to work’ would do is let workers, who are in a union pay dues or opt not to pay. If they opt out they still get the benefits from the union as the dues-paying workers. Some pay, while others get a free ride. I always thought Republicans and the Tea Party members were against free rides – something for nothing. What the ‘right to work’ does is weaken the unions by sharing the benefits in an open shop whereas in a closed shop everyone pays their fair share. Weakening the unions is what ‘right to work’ and ‘pay check protection’ is all about and ALEC and the GOP won’t give up until they succeed in destroying all the protections in place for workers. This is what this is all about. There are currently 23 states with ‘right to work’ legislation; and Arizona is currently...