If they can bring together all of the 99%, which includes among others the OWS, the employed, the unemployed and the unions – all the types of unions, both private and public, then the battle can be won.
One of the problems that could derail this effort is that unions have a large number of republican-voting members in their ranks who apparently don’t understand who the wage slaves are. A union person once told me that a union member who votes for a republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. The unions need to teach their republican members that when they vote republican they are voting to break their unions, lose their pensions, healthcare and good wages, which feeds and takes care of their families.
If they vote against their union, which is a slap to their brothers and sisters, they should be banished from the union. They are just Trojan Horses in their unions. The rejuvenated unions should join the 99% in protesting anything that adversely affects workers, and we damn sure cannot, under any circumstances, have our unions not working together. We must broker a trust at least until the elections are over.
If we lose the election, senate, congress and the presidency, to the GOP and lose more states, then it will make no difference for the 1% will then be able to own all the wage slaves. Things are not all bad, though. At a local 5 county labor meeting recently the local OWS sent a representative and offered the OWS’ support for unions, which the unions accepted. Now, if we, the 99%, will put a hand out to the returning veterans, who will need help and they can be an ally for the 99% proletarians.
We probably cannot agree on everything, but we can agree on the important things, such as jobs, healthcare, pensions and unions. These next seven months will be one of the most important times in our lifetimes. I hope we get it right for fallen is not an option we can live with.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
Comments
Post a Comment