Meet the American Legislative Exchange Council’s little brother, the American City Council Exchange
The awakening of the silent low-wage workers may be driven by the new American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is the group funded by the Koch brothers, who have bought state governments. The new Koch brothers funded organization, American City Council Exchange (ACCE) which has and intends to now buy local government.
The anti-worker right wing has figured out that the biggest threat for a higher minimum wage of $15 to $18 is coming from the local level, cities and counties, which labor has known for a long time, but been slow to take advantage of. Cities are, in short, the home of the Democratic base and it is also labor’s base—the greater the population density the bluer they become.
The anti-union GOP Koch brothers puppets also know this and the ACCE will hold its second annual meeting this summer on local labor issues, like minimum wage laws and collective bargaining. Then they will try to do what they did in Oklahoma state when local politicians passed laws, which stopped Oklahoma City from raising the minimum wage. This is not the only thing states like Texas are doing. They passed a bill banning local fracking regulations. They have passed laws preempting paid sick leave time; they are trying to rollback or block city-led environmental laws. Maine’s governor, Paul DePage, is working with the GOP legislator to pass a bill that would prohibit his state’s cities from enacting wage hikes.
There is a war between urban Americans and a political system radically rigged against it and it is just beginning. This may be the tipping point in favor of the proletarians for the oligarchies may have started their attack on many fronts at the same time, such as at the federal government level, state governments level, local governments, labor unions, voting rights, and overreacting police officers and departments.
This could just be what shows how the silent majority is being victimized by the 1 percent, Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the likes. Remember, the ACCE plan will be hatched this summer in San Diego, California.
Pay Attention.
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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