Take Battle to Local Level

In all wars the battles decide who wins so you must win the most battles and the most important ones and the battle to unite the working class against the divide and rule strategies of the capitalist class upon which their domination rest. It is a battle the wage slaves must win. If you don’t fight, you don’t win—period. If someone you know doesn’t understand why the minimum wage needs to raise, wait until the end of the month and then ask again. The cost of everything is going up; some of the costs are understandable, but some are not and corporations are using any excuse to raise prices, but not workers’ wages. How the hell are we supposed to survive> The employers try to turn workers who are black, female, gay, Mexican, or immigrant into scapegoats as distraction for the lack of good jobs creation along with the strategies the oligarchies blame Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act and the minimum wage, but the minimum wage raises are coming and the spending power of the toilers will be better and if a couple living together can demand $15 an hour each, they would conceivably earn $30 an hour. They will have a chance to pull ahead for themselves and their offspring. Then throw in good healthcare and the possibility of a pension down the road. We will then be back to the pre-Reagan years for workers; and then we must start building a fortress to defend what we have clawed back, such as strong unions and laws to give us back the right to strike and laws prohibiting strike breakers or replacement workers. Workers must start saving for hard times when they have to strike to preserve or enhance their working conditions. There is no material product out there that you or a family member HAS to have. It’s time to tighten your belts and forego the luxuries. It will actually feel good to do without because you’ll know you’re taking care of your future and when your money starts adding up, you’ll feel good knowing you didn’t cave on something you can live without while sticking it to the corporations. It’s time for the minimalist lifestyle. Remember, to win, we, the proletarians, will have to get control, but not so much in Washington, D.C., which is in the grip of corporate lobbyists and the 1 percent oligarchies. No, we need control of the local governments, such as school boards, water boards, city councils, and county board of supervisors, and then the state level. This is what the Tea Party did and look how that turned out. They are fast trying to roll back our country to when the white male controlled everything because they know he is an endangered species, but we have to pay the price for their fear and greed. This is where the Have Nots can and will win. Already many states are raising the minimum wage, slow walking it, but still raising it. Seattle, WA, will be up to $15 in a few years and the City of Davis, CA, with a resolution/petition to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Late last year, San Jose, CA, began raising its minimum wage and it is now more than $10 an hour. Local is where we can win. Look at the marijuana laws, as an example. The legalization advocates will win or lose at the local level. It is a war between the Haves and the Have Nots, but, in the long run, the Nots will win if they unite in this fight.

May Day 2028 or Sooner

Unions’ long game is to get all union contracts to expire on the same day nationwide. The United Auto Workers combines contracts ends on April 28, 2028. This could then result in a mass national strike starting on May Day beeginning that year. This could then put enormous pressure on employers, but also on lawmakers. It’s the muscle and sweat of the workers that keeps this country great, not the individual company or corporations. This May Day strike would be the time to change the workers’ world for the better by negotiating for a 32-hour week with the same pay, and the U.S. adopts a healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs. This would also help the employers as they would no longer have to provide healthcare. By striking, the UAW won same pay for new workers, all UAW contracts will end on the same date, a 25-percent pay increase, a cost of living adjustments, a guaranteed right to strike over potential plant closures, and also the right to vote to unionize through the card che

Standing At The Precipice

Unions do not do well in a dictatorship because unions are the first thing dictators destroy, and rest assured the workers won’t be allowed to hit the streets in protest. If Trump is elected he will invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops into the cities to crush them and send a message that he will terminate and dissent. They will eliminate unions and unionized workers. We are standing at the precipice and it's up to us to fight the fall into a dictatorship. By voting for the GOP, maga people and anyone else will be able to keep their guns until Trump says, “No.” By then, he will have already amassed an Army of foot soldiers in place to take over the government jobs. They will be Trump’s people and they will do whatever he tells them to do. The only way this can be stopped is for all unions and their members to put aside their political and social differences and stand strong for democracy, unions, workers rights and workers safety. This is not a drill. It will happen just loo

“Workampers” are the New IWW Wobblies

We now have another organization that will enhance the wage pollution for the wage slaves. Walmart started the wage pollution and then temporary agencies, which offer no healthcare or pensions, just temporary low wages. Now we have the online U.S. retail business, which did $197 billion in 2011. The workforce that does the work in these hundreds of warehouses are called “workampers.” Amalgamated advertises positions on websites that workampers frequent. This is just a modern version of what the old Wobblies had to do in the 1920s and ‘30s; only then, instead, of traveling from place to place living in trailers and motorhomes they rode railroad freight cars and camped in hobo camps called the Jungle, which we still have. The reason that the warehouse owners like workampers is they are temporary and will not stay year round that way by not staying in one place the workers do not have time to make friends, which could start unions. This is an old way to keep unions out for if people w

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