In the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty are we seeing the handprint of the U.S. oligarchies? Are the U.S. oligarchies pushing the Ukraine government to slash mining jobs by selling off or shutting down state owned mines, cutting social benefits and carrying out other austerity measures to shore up profits for the capitalists and meet loan conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund? Despite the fact that austerity has been proven time and again that it does not work.
Once again, the toilers at the bottom are the ones to take the hit and the fight even carries over to the wage slaves in Russia where U.S. sanctions are squeezing food prices; meat and poultry prices have skyrocketed by 17 percent. It is just like all wars where the wage slaves are the ones who give their lives for the oligarchies of the world.
This is where unions must be strong. It is the only hope for the families of the Ukrainian and Russian poor. These fights are worldwide, such as with the Kurds, Turkey, Greece, France, England and here in the U.S. In Iran, 5,000 miners are fighting government steps to privatize the Bafgh iron ore mines. If the mines are privatized, jobs, wages and safety will be cut. Employment and living standards in Iran are under pressure as a result of the world capitalist system.
In the U.S., our workers are fighting to keep their jobs in the postal service, New Jersey casino workers, and Washington, D.C., taxi drivers. In Washington state berry pickers are trying to keep their union.
It doesn’t matter where one lives, the workers are getting short changed and are the ones paying the price for the oligarchies’ insatiable greed.
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...
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