There is hope for the wage slaves and it is coming from the low-wage workers, who have very little. These are the people who will raise the ship of wages and produce jobs. For they will force the oligarchies and corporations, who are sitting on trillions of dollars either in the U.S. or in offshore bank accounts to pay their workers a living wage.
These greedy elitists should be made to stop receiving corporate welfare, which is when the 99 percent pays taxes to support their en slavers while workers are trying to live on minimum wage or part-time work. The workers must be supplemented by at least by at least $8 to $10 per hour just to survive so when we (not me) shop at Walmart and think we are getting a good deal on something made in China you’re not. For you are helping Walmart pay its workers through your taxes, which could be used for something benefitting our country and not billionaires because the states, counties and cities have to make up the difference of low wages in food stamps and healthcare.
The low-wage workers, such as car washes, laundries, taxi companies, McDonalds, Walmart, Target, and Home Depot, to name a few, will win. The unions need to support the low-wage workers anyway they can, even by using their retired people to help picket, pay for media spots, money for legal advice, for the workers will win and the unions could use the support in its events.
Another group of wage slaves we must not forget is the ‘workampers,’ who travel the country, just like the old fruit tramps going from crop to crop picking the fruits. The difference is the workampers use old motor homes or vans, campers or pickups and live in them. Most workampers are retired people supplementing their incomes by going from one temporary job to another working for online retail, which earned $197 billion in 2011 and is projected to earn $279 billion in 2015. Top online retailers are Amazon, Staples, Apple, Dell, Office Depot, Walmart, Sears, Office Max, Liberty Media Corporation, CDW Corporation, Best Buy, Newegg, Netflix, Sony USA, Granger, Costco, Macys, Victoria Secret, LL Bean, Target and SystemMax.
The warehouses where workers ship products for the above companies have working conditions as close to slave labor as you can get and the largest and the worst is the Amalgamated warehouse. They hire and fire constantly, and working overtime every day is mandatory. The company use temporary agencies to hire, which shields Amalgamated from breaking labor laws.
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