Will labor ever have modern day leaders like William D. Haywood, Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Daniel De Leon, Father Thomas J. Hagerty, Frank Little, Gurley Flynn or Joe Hill? Some of these people were members of the International Workers of the World also known as “Wobblies.” Some were also called “soapboxers” because they were the people who fought for freedom of speech and won the right to stand on a street corner and just talk about whatever they wanted. Most of these people were the voices of labor and talking about all workers in all industries the world over.
So, today we should be using these hard earned rights to point out that the rich are getting richer and refusing to understand or respond to the growing disaster that they are creating. Today’s low-wage workers working full time earn a combined$14 billion while Wall Street took in $28.5 billion in just bonuses. We must take a page from history and look at the Gilded Ages of the oligarchies, which was turned around by the wage slaves, people supporting the New Deal, higher taxation on the 1 percent, good rules and regulations on the Market.
Think of today’s banks and Wall Street, and good rules of politics. There has to be a change for our democracy here and worldwide is at-risk from a combination of lopsided wealth and power. This is where and why we, today, need modern soapboxers, Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous and the Arab Spring.
I hope they are out there planning, organizing and training for this is the year to beat back inequality with the minimal of $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage, free education, universal healthcare, pensions and do not forget about payments for our Commons, which the corporations have free use of. It is time to pay up. But first we must stand up.
Voting is one way to send a clear message. Republican candidates for president, such as Rand Paula and Chris Christy, are coming out of the woodwork advocating the cutting, privatizing or abolishing of Social Security. If they succeed, where will that lead us? They have almost everything already and now they want to take Social Security, too. It’s up to us collectively to put a stop to it.
In 2026 unions worldwide must educate and expand their memberships or face certain death. We need to educate our workers to understand that the republican party does not care about, does not deserve their support or votes and only cares about the billionaires. The GOP is their enemy and not their friends. The GOP and billionaires are the workers’ enemy. They want the workers’ sweat and blood for as cheap as they can get it. These greedy people and their insatiable appetite for more leaving us with much less will not stop until we’re forced to work for scraps and fighting each other for the pittance. They will not invite you to golf with them or go hunting or to dinner with them. In fact, they are always in pursuit of ways to destroy our unions and the way of life we’ve obtain by being union. One way they are doing this is to use the court system, especially the lop-sided Supreme Court, to take away our union rights and to get more states to vote for The Right to Work, which leaves work...
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