Why don’t we, labor wage slaves, have organizations, other than labor unions, fighting for our workers? The right wing has not only anti-labor think tanks, but also many undercover organizations, such as American Legislative Exchange Council; the right wing group the Lincoln Club of Orange County, California; Manufacturers Association; and the local, national and international Chamber of Commerce.
These are just a few of the organizations that have come out from under their rocks and are getting laws or propositions on the ballot before we wage slaves even know what’s happened. This always puts us on the defense, which we must stop in order to counter their actions. They have the money, but we have the people. Whether or not they lose they will have depleted our treasury and worn our people out.
What we need to do is take the fight to them, which will remove what they are doing to us. We could do this by using our labor councils and spin off organizations to work on propositions and laws to benefit us, the working people, such as raising the minimum wage to a living wage of $14-$15 an hour in cities and counties; and card check. This can be done and then the oligarchies would have to start spending their money and resources. They just have money. We have some money but a lot of people. We could turn the fight upside down now that we have won the election and have the momentum.
Unions are in a crisis. Union organizers are being stretch to the breaking point. We have a lot of retirees, most with little to do, and they are a resource being wasted. They should be recruited to work with union members, teaching them the ropes and union and American history. By using the retirees, they are kept involved; their union bonds are reinforced; and they are reminded of where they came from. By ignoring them we are leaving them to fall under the spell of Fox News and anti-union labor factions and then they vote against their best interests.
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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