Union Perspectives

What do the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the $15 to $16 an hour have in common? Some of things, I see, are the education of the young activists, who are discovering that their fight has been fought before, and will always have to be fought. The inequality of good wages and standard of living is now wider than in past years. The fight is never ending. It is like the country of Holland fighting the sea to keep it back. They can never rest, and the Dutch accept the fight as a way of life f or the alternative is the end of life as they know it. This is the mentality our young wage slaves must learn in order to survive in the employment world. The fight is a very long and never ending one. When we let up on this fight, we end up where we are today, fighting our way out of the gutters once again. The Occupy movement was just round one and a winner for the wage slaves because it gave people a confidence boost and education, which started a conversation on what is wrong with the USA and the ...

The widening of the wage inequality worldwide is going to destroy democracy as we know it today and destroy the economy for the economy and democracy go hand-in-hand. If we take out the guts of both, which is the wage slaves, we can lose it all. The wage slaves are the ‘have littles’ and the ‘haves,’ which leaves the one who are at the top, the 1 percent, and the ones at the bottom, the ‘have nothing.’ The 1 percent just sits on their money and the ‘have nothings’ have no money to add to the economy. If we could get more money into the hands of the ‘have littles’ through higher wages, tax breaks, and free healthcare. They, then, would employ the ‘have nothings,’ then the new money and taxes they pay and the funds that are saved from welfare would trickle up to the government and the 1 percent, who could make even more money. The inequality of wages would start to lose, which might just save the consumer economy and democracy. The alternative is what? A plutocracy or a revolution? ...

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the new enemy of the working class people. The TPP is the oligarchies’ new plan to get even more wealth diverted to them by once again standing on the backs of the wage slaves while taking away all the tools from us, the wage slaves. The TPP is considered worse than North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO). If a union tries to fight back, especially if a union has assets that can be lost in a lawsuit, will fail under the TPP, which will be empowered to sue for obstruction and a monetary settlement if a union strikes. No union will nor should they chance that. TPP is a 12 country group of Pacific Rim countries with more than 200 trade issue “professionals” in the regions represented in TPP, which make up our largest trading partners. The most disturbing aspect of TPP is the three branches of our government, who are responsible for protecting our workers’ rights, have been bribed or silenced. According to its webs...

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.” If all of us, the 99 percent, would adhere to this sentiment by Roosevelt we would take away about 90 percent of the anti-workers’ playbook. Whenever the oligarchies want to stop or destroy a movement, program or an idea which would advance the good of the working people, they use fear, such as the everlasting attacks on healthcare, Medicare, and the never-ending battle against Social Security and unions. All of which perpetuates dignity and freedom for the wage slaves. Just think what our lives would be like without these things. We would literally be at the total mercy of the 1 percent. Our young people would not be able to see a future and our wage slaves would soon sink into despair and this would be what the 1 percent would think would be a victory; but in reality it would be a death sentence to capitalism as we know it today. Fear and despair does not motivate people to work harder, study harder or em...