Union Perspectives

What does the USA, Sweden and Switzerland have in common? It is the fight about the inequality between labor and the oligarchies. Today in Switzerland, one of the fighters against inequality is Marilule Wili. Years ago, many of fighters of inequality came from Sweden. In 1905, the USA had a labor hero by the name of Joe Hill, but he was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund and also known as Joseph Hillstrom in a Gävle, a Swedish village. He came to America and first reached prominence on the West Coast while he worked to organize the International Workers of the World (IWW) Wobblies; and Hill was also a song writer and was known as the “Troubadour of Discontent." Hill was framed for murdering a grocer and his son and shot to death in Salt Lake City, Utah. After his execution thousands of Wobblies made him their martyr and his work continued on. His last famous words just before he died were, “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize,” and it looks like the spirit is still here and in Swede...

Our old labor leaders, who worked with the International Workers of the World (IWW) Wobblies, had names that represented the world. Names like Vincent St. John, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill aka Joseph Hillstrom, Ralph Chaplin, the Magon brothers, Frank Little, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Joe Ettor, and Arturo Giovannitti. These people were the shock troops of labor. The IWW’s weakness was that they really liked to fight better than they, the Wobblies, liked planning, negotiating or politicking. The IWW ideas were the anarcho-syndicalist ideas that had stirred France a little earlier with its methods and shibboleths (sabotage)—even the wooden shoe is a symbol of sabotage. The IWW membership was an American mixture with a large percentage of foreign-born, who were the most politically awakened. It was a conflict of the bloodiest kind that kept the IWW together. It existed for the sole purpose of making the first breaches in the resistance of entrenched industry. The IWW’s greatest single con...

If you want to see a true example of apathy, look at a typical postal worker. The USPS eliminated 37,000 jobs last year and will keep eliminating jobs. In any other sector of the labor force, an elimination of this kind is done under the guise of saving money by downsizing and privatization. Keep in mind, the real reason is to break the largest existing union, which will lessen money for the anti-GOP fight. Also, look at where the GOP wants to put USPS wants to put offices—in private mini-post offices within non-union Staples stores. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Staples in floundering. The company initially had 2,000 stores in 26 countries, and now Staples is closing 60 more stores worldwide this year, 15 in the U.S. and 45 in Europe, in an attempt to save 250 stores. Staples’ pays $8.25 an hour versus the $25 an hour for union postal workers. So how will taking away $25 an hour pay from 37,000 workers going to help the economy? Again, this attempt to move the USPS into Stapl...

Labor is just what it says, Labor. All labor needs to be paid a living wage, not just a servile wage. The living wage needs to have some disposable income in the pay check, which will boost the consumer-driven capitalist system. This type of wage, around $15 to $16 an hour, needs to be paid to all wage slaves no matter the type of job. A worker should not have to work and need government support to survive. When workers use government support, other, higher paid workers, are helping to support the lower paid workers. This government support is nothing more than a subsidy to the corporations, the same corporations that do not pay taxes or their fair share of taxes. These subsidies help corporations increase their profits. Americans need to ask themselves, why corporations are receiving the welfare help that poor Americans aren’t or are criticized for receiving. The corporations are the “welfare queens,” not the low paid workers. Before you assume that America does not have qualified or...

Privatizing is just a way to get rid of union jobs, nothing else. It does not save money, as predicted or the excuse given for the privatization. This is what is happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina-Sarajevo today. This privatizing has sparked economic plight and civil unrest with buildings being set on fire and the presidency under siege. When Bosnia abandoned Communism 20 years ago, officials devised a plan to privatize government jobs. More than 80 percent of privatizations have failed. Many well-connected oligarchies have taken companies and stripped them of their assets, declaring bankruptcies and leaving thousands without jobs or with minimal pay and no pensions. Protests erupted on Feb. 4 in the city of Tuzla, where thousands of factory workers burned government buildings and fought police over the selling off of state-owned companies that left workers without jobs and future wages. Privatizations have decimated the middle class and sent the working class into poverty everywhere it...

Are the 99 percent wage slaves preparing for the spring offensive to better their lives and narrowing the inequality gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent. It is time to plan the offensive strategy for the wage fight for $15 to $16 an hour. The 99 percent must look at and understand the weaknesses and strengths of our side and that of the corporate GOP (Art of War). The 99 percent must gather intel on the corporations through research or living agents who can get information. They need to be clever, resourceful, talented, and wise. Then, with good intel, the planning starts. With knowledge of their weaknesses and strengthens, the timing of the offensive will depend on your intel and other factors, such as weather, terrain, troops, supplies, money and training. It can be as simple as blocking entrances to building and complicated as Anonymous’ hacking. Remember, all warfare is based on deception. Some strategies to consider are as follows: when capable, feign incapacity, then ac...

In the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” he explains the types of government and how they succeed or fail. To uphold laws of a country, it is done by fear of either some god, who the blame of punishment can be laid upon or fear of the government or a combination of both. If there is good, the government or prince takes the credit; but if it is bad, then god did it. You can see why a type of god is so important in most governments. Most all three types of governments use this as a way to keep control of the masses. The three types of government are: principality, aristocracy, and democracy. These are the good one, but there are also three bad types of government, which derive from the three goods ones when they fail. The principality slips into tyranny; aristocracy becomes an oligarchy, which has no respect for any civil rights; and the democracy turns into anarchy. Sparta, which lasted 800 years, used a constitution by Lycurgus that combined all three: principality, ar...

Union members within California state government to include those in counties, cities, and union school teachers, medical, all firefighters and law enforcement must not ever take their unions and benefits for granted. Your worst enemy, besides all the GOP union busters, is apathy and not knowing your union/labor history. I have been working with California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection union members who do not support their own union. In fact, I cannot even get a retired or working rep to come to our Local Labor Council meetings once a month, nor, for that matter, any city union members, and some of the county members periodically at best. This apathy demonstrates that these workers are oblivious to how they came to earn their benefits and think the benefits would remain if the union was disbanded. This ignorance is astounding. Yes, California at this time is mostly Democratic and still has lots of unions, but the members are not involved in keeping their unions strong b...

The vilification of the union name and labor movements started around World War I, when the U.S. government broke the back of the International Workers of the World (IWW). Some of IWW members were against the war despite that fact that many IWW members served honorably in military. The next onslaught against labor was brought on by the actions of Jimmy Hoffa for abuse of the Teamsters’ union members pensions. The McClellan Committee, led by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. When the McClellan investigation was over, Senator Barry Goldwater went after the Reuther brothers, mostly Walter, who was the United Auto Workers president. The AFL then supported the Vietnam War and fought in the streets against fellow union members, who were mostly Democrats protesting the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. This did not earn the AFL any points with the GOP; in fact, they viewed the AFL members as suckers. Walter Reuther was sickened by the news coverage of union workers beating up protesters. He said it ...

Unions need to study labor history and reboot using the lessons learned by what has worked and not worked. Labor must only support people who are trusted-worker friendly and be very careful not to make mistakes, such as some labor leaders did when they supported Ronald Reagan. The records of some of our presidents: Abraham Lincoln valued organized labor; Grover Cleveland sent the Army to suppress labor movements; Harry Truman challenged the right to strike on the coal and steel mines, and railways; Lyndon Johnson acted on issues of the work-place safety. Reagan, an FBI rat known as #T-10, destroyed the air traffic controllers union, PATCO. This union and many others have never fully recovered at this time. The wage slaves, have nots, have little, and used to have are forging a comeback, but even so, we still have some reluctant workers who are still slow to step up to the plate. To those people, they must remember this poem by Martin Niemoller: “First they came for the communists, an...

The best chance for wage slaves to prevail in their fight for higher wages can be found in the tireless work of two women: Kshama Sawant in Seattle, WA, and Marilule Wili in Switzerland. Sawant is a Seattle city council member and Wili is a waitress and musician and a member of the organization, Generation Basic Income, an activist group trying to persuade voters to amend Switzerland’s Constitution to guarantee every citizen a yearly income of $33,000 a year whether they work or not. They have gotten the necessary 100,000 signatures to place the initiative on the ballot to put it before the country’s voters. The vote will be in two or three years. Philosophically, the idea of equality has a long history drawing support from the likes of the English/American revolutionary Thomas Paine and economist Milton Friedman. The best minimum wages are in Denmark, which gives its poorest citizens $1,800 a month; enough to keep their citizens out of poverty. This all can be financially feasible by...

For unions to be strong, they must be prepared and protect the one power they have over the 1 percent anti-union oligarchies. That is the strike. In the past, strikes always ended with losses on the wage slaves’ side because the unions never have enough resources to keep their workers fed or housed and money enough to keep the workers’ bills paid. This is a ploy the money people have used against wage slaves. They make it easy for anyone to get credit and credit cards, which the oligarchies control all aspects of credit cards from the limits to the interest rates, and when the average person needs more money they are encouraged them to tap into the equity in their homes. With no savings, large debts, it does not take long to break a worker and the strike ends. The oligarchies literally starve workers back to work. The unions must make a concerted effort to educate their union members on money management and how to survive a strike long enough to prevail in the strike. One thing that...