Union Perspectives

The old International Workers of the World would be proud of the way wage slaves today are standing up for their rights in countries, such as Bangladesh, most of Europe, Israel, Palestine, and now South American countries, such as Ecuador, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, who are now fighting for the rights of day laborers, back pay, who work on the ports. They are being supported by the Longshoremen’s union. This is world solidarity among the wage slaves. The way it is supposed to be, and we should not forget the Ukrainians’ fight for the right to protest. Yes, the tide is turning slowly in favor of the wage slaves, but we must remember what Karl Marx and Frederick Engles said in 1848: That now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. The fight must keep moving forward to even up the disparity of a few with so much and so m...

President Obama wants close the gap between the rich and poor, but wage slaves must be aware of the consequences of the slow walk in higher wages. If the wages stop increasing before $15 to $16 an hour all it will accomplish is that wage slaves will be making just enough money to disqualify them and their families from food stamps or other government assistance, which ends up being no help at all. It will only help the government and make the anti-worker GOP happy. The GOP will have you believe that low wage workers are lazy and do not want anything more out of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have poor because we have politicians who make bad decisions impacting the poor even more, such as daycare, Head Start or after school programs. Many head of households are single parents, most often women, and can’t afford the basic needs let alone daycare, so how are they supposed to get ahead if they can’t even make it to the starting line? What the workers must have is wages ...

Have the Wisconsin wage slaves figured out that forming a band of brothers and sisters is better than listening to Fox News and electing people who want to destroy their financial way of life? If so, maybe this would be the reason union membership is up in Wisconsin. After Wisconsin workers saw the third largest decline in the nation in 2012, it is now seeing the seventh largest gains in membership from 11.25 percent to 12.34. This surprised even the unions because many believed corruptness of the state’s governor and his Koch-backed minion had essentially destroyed the unions in Wisconsin. Does this also mean that the wage slaves have figured out that taking the high ground to do battle is the way to win, which is putting pressure on the anti-union elected officials and electing people who believe in the cause and will not worry about losing their next election to the anti-union GOP opponents? If there is no candidate who fits that explanation, then put your money and energy into buil...

The Dow Jones drops 318 and experiences the worst day since June. The Stock Market is down and people are asking why. It is very simple; you just have to go to the very bottom of the capitalist system, which is the wage slaves, who are the consumers in a capitalist consumer system. So the answer is obviously wage inequality. The greed of the oligarchies has caused the Stock Market to fall and it will continue to fall until the greedy loosen their pocket strings. China’s manufacturing has dropped, and as a result the country now uses less oil, iron, coal, which puts wage slaves out of jobs and creates a ripple effect upon other countries, such as those in Europe. These countries are also seeing a drop in consumerism. It all goes back to disposable income in the pockets of the “have nots,” who actually spend the money. U.S. workers should be making $15 to $16 an hour, which would be a huge money infusion into our capitalist consumer system. However, with no money to spend we end up w...

How do 85 people in the world control the same amount of the wealth as one half of the world’s population or 3.5 billion people? Another way to look at this is each of the 85 richest people has access to the same resources as do 42 million of the world’s “have nots” and last year 210 people joined the ranks of billionaires. So at this time the wealth of the 1 percent is $110 trillion. Now, how do the 99 percent pry away some of this money? One way is to make the oligarchies pay a living wage of at least $15 to $16 an hour and, yes, there is a huge inequality between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, and the old worn out playbook of the GOP anti-union plays will not hold water any more. You know the old sayings like, “pull yourself up by your own boot straps.” I would like to see someone do this. I think it is literally and physically impossible to do. Another ignorant position is only young wage slaves just starting their work experience are the workers at fast food, low wage jobs. Th...

It is time for the 1 percent oligarchies to start paying back for the use of “our” commons. They are getting a free ride. They exploit our national resources, our clean air and water, they use our roads, airspace, radios, television, and our armed forces protect their interests abroad. Our commons belong to all 100 percent of us, but the 1 percent uses it the most and the 99 percent have to pay for the upkeep through our taxes, which the 1 percent has loop holes to avoid paying their fair share. There needs to be a tax on the use of our commons that is fair. At this time the oligarchies get a free ride. We give them young, healthy, educated workers, who are the 99 percent have paid to educate and healthcare to keep them healthy and they try to pay them the lowest wages with no benefits possible. A recent job advertisement listed a master’s degree was required, but the starting pay was only $34,000 a year, not enough to live on and pay back student loans. This means we are subsidizing ...

The wage inequality of 1870 was less than the wage inequality of today, 2014. The gap between the capitalists and the poor proletarians is much wider and getting wider each year and eventually will spawn a proletarian worldwide revolution unless the gap closes. This isn’t the first time a revolution was waged to end the tyranny of the rich. Wages must be raised from subsistence to a living wage with some disposal income. There was a proletarian revolution about to happen in the 1800s, between 1867 to 1870 in England, western Europe and North America, but was averted by real wages being paid; however, there were some small declines in wages from time to time. Then we had the rise of the so-called third world countries, which some of these countries had just gotten their independence from European colonialism and with this the inequality began to spread because the third world countries were draining jobs from the rich countries so the 1 percent could keep even more of the money made o...

If capitalism, as we know it today, is to survive the oligarchies will have to stop the war against the wage slaves. Without wage slaves there will be no capitalist system. The workers make the products, they buy the products, and use the products, which make the oligarchies rich. There are two dangers to capitalism; one is oversupply, the other is shortage of buyers, which can be remedied by higher wages for the workers or new customers from low-wage countries—and—this brings us back to wages and disposal income spent on products and other basic needs. The old International Workers of the World union workers were way ahead of the times when they sought to enlist workers from around the world as one, with no country borders, which meant that they would not fight in wars for they believed that all wage slaves were brothers and sisters. The oligarchies want to keep a way to split the work force, which makes it easier to control the wage slaves, but it is changing for now all workers ca...

Janet Yellen is the new Federal Reserve chair; the first woman to hold this position of the world’s largest economy. She has three major goals as head of the Fed that will help the working wage slaves, but with her 36 years of experience and knowledge of the monetary system she can pull it off. One is to get unemployment down from 7 percent to 5-4 percent, which is in contrast to her predecessor Allen Greenspan, who wanted to keep unemployment at 6 percent, which always favored the money over the workers. Yellen’s number two goal is to get the flat wages up to a living wage with some disposal cash. Her third goal is to get the housing market growing again, which will be a huge boost in jobs, building, and also in needed goods for housing construction, like lumber and appliances. For the workers to have a person in the top position of finance who understands the need of the workers has never happened before. With the push by fast food for $15 an hour, some states, federal government a...

California minimum wage is going to $10-$12 is just enough to move workers off of government assistance, such as food stamps, but still does not give the workers disposal income, which will boost the economy with more jobs and more taxes for local and state coffers. It would be a step in the right direction to stop the taxpayers subsidizing corporations that pay low wages to their workers. Millionaire Representative Ron Unz, of Silicon Valley California, wants to raise the California minimum wage to $12 an hour. Governor Brown wants to raise the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour; Seattle, WA., mayor wants the minimum wage to be $15 and this is where it should be, $15 to $16 at this time. The increase is being slow walked, but it is going to happen. Whichever state does it first will be the winner. Their jobs and their economy will be a huge success for the state, and if California voters would do the $15 an hour minimum and the legalization of marijuana, California workers and the g...

The true wage slave is a good union worker who usually serves a four to five year apprenticeship then begins his or her career in the building trades or other type of specialty work, such as a machinist. Once they finished their apprenticeship they are invested in their pensions, and, in most cases, with a retirement at around the age of 52 to 55 years old. If they leave the trade they cannot draw their pension until they reach 65, which keeps stability in the work force. Part of the unions’ responsibility is to ensure workers’ keep current with their training, keeps them healthy with healthcare, and even providing substance abuse care for members—so in essence unions create the perfect wage slaves. With these benefits in place, it makes it very hard to leave a union job hence unions create dedicated wage slaves and a stable work force. So why do corporations think destroying the unions is good for business? When the very people who support businesses are the ones who are getting thei...