The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was put in place to have a system of labor control. The NLRA, at this time, does not help labor. For about 50 years of legal decisions have consistently restricted the rights of workers to take concerted actions when the NLRA rights were violated.
Most of the labor disputes were supported not by the laws of the NLRA or the facts of the cases, but, instead, were based on a set of pro-management values and assumptions, which had no basis in actual law. In order to win when we go to court or try to strike and stay within the law, we will have to challenge this pro-management bias, which is a key to reviving trade unions. This does not matter much at this time with retail and fast food workers as they cannot be controlled very much. They can use their free speech and freedom of assembly to get the $15 to $16 an hour minimum wage and to start off protest at places where you don’t work and get them to protest at your place of employment. What can the employers do? Remember, public support is what will win the fight.
Labor will comeback. The unions might look a little different or not, but we must not be afraid to try new tactics and cherry pick the old tactics, which worked. Think International Workers of the World. They were the best in their time and those using their tactics still today are winning their labor battles. If labor wins the $15 to $16 an hour wage this will be the start of bringing back the middle class, reignite the American Dream and putting restraints on the out-of-control corporate greed.
The fight is worth fighting. Remember, the money to afford this is still out there. It was printed and has not gone away. The money is just not being spent and is sitting in the vaults of the corporations and oligarchies. They are growing their wealth by the Stock Market and Hedge Funds, but the increase wealth does not work without wage slaves. It is the workers who grow the actual wealth. With lots of pressure on the corporations and their wallets, they will have to retreat little by little until we get what we, wage slaves, are entitled to.
Remember, the money never left. The money is just being used the wrong way at this time.
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...
Comments
Post a Comment