Union Perspectives

At a union meeting an AFL/CIO representative was trying to convince the union leaders there to educate their workers about how the GOP are going to attack them this election and with only 100 plus days left before the election I would call this crisis management. Why do the union leaders have to educate their workers for they should know what they’re up against and they should know themselves—their union history—for the Art of War says if you do not know yourself you will lose half of your battles; and if you do not know yourself and do not know your enemies then you will lose all your battles. I think that the AFL/CIO should spend most of its money on explaining about the unions and what they have done for the working people—whether they are union or not—and also we should show the faces of the new and old union leaders, which were the real heroes of the working class wage slaves and there are many. What the unions have been doing is giving money to promote unknown wannabe polit...

They ship their companies’ jobs off shore, which means they do not care for the working slave families in America, and they ship their money overseas to beat paying taxes. A recent study by the group Tax Justice Network estimates the amount of money in offshore tax havens to be between $21 and $32 trillion, this figure doesn’t include non-financial assets, such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses. Our taxes, that of the commoner, pays for and supports our Armed Forces, which protects the wealthy’s interests in other countries. The money they save by not paying their fair share in taxes, they use to buyoff state governors and federal politicians, which gives them more power and money. They can get rid of the health care laws, environmental regulations, unions, and pensions. You might ask why patriots would do this to their own country. The answer is they are not patriots. They have so much money that the USA is just a resting place to them, and a place to bleed the economy...

It looks like the unions are finally waking up to the fact that they will have to take care of themselves and not wait for some elected politician to do their work for them. So with that in mind our unions have withdrawn their support, $1 million, in funding from the Democratic National Convention, which is being held in a nonunion state in nonunion hotels. This is a slap in the face to unions. This money is our union dues, which was going to pay for this. There are more important ways to spend our dues, like organizing and training our members in labor history. To win the war against the money people we must know ourselves and also learn about our enemies, and this takes time and lots of money we need to run advertisements about why unions are good and the badness of Wall Street corporations with their oligarchies. We must be ready in November and have a plan for moving ahead or a plan for defining ourselves. We must not become pessimistic. We must stay positive in our thoughts ...

Health Care for 30 million is a Big F*&%ing Deal and will now bring more patients to the health clinics, which will mean more jobs for all medical providers, such as nurses, nurse practitioners, and doctors. Emergency rooms in hospitals will now really be emergency rooms, not waiting rooms for everything except emergencies. The want-to-be entrepreneur can now take the chance to start a business and not worry about health insurance for themselves and their employees. Some will be successful in their business and then create more jobs and hire more people. International corporations will now be more competitive with countries that have government health care for their workers, and the health care cost won’t be found in the cost of their product. This will eliminate at least one reason jobs are sent overseas. For unions this will be better. As for union organizers, and I speak from experience as a union organizer, that when I would sign up a member or a shop the workers did not und...