If the U.S. and the world over ever want to see a robust middle class again there must be jobs where a worker earns a living wage and has a full-time job of at least 30 to 40 hours a week, which should be counted as a full time and eligible for benefits. Workers who have to work two or three jobs just to survive does not a life make.
One must keep in mind that a minimum wage raise to $15 to $18 an hour will mean nothing if there is no union or way to fight for hours for even at 30 hours at $15 an hour is only $450 weekly gross. Employers cut hours, creating “McJobs,” but they keep hiring new workers—why? The answer is they are giving themselves a larger part–time pool, who are trained this way and if the wage slaves try to unionize employers think they will have union busters on hand. Also, the flexibility, which started about twenty years ago still works somewhat for white-collar workers, but is curse for blue-collar workers without a union because now the employers own the workers 24 hours seven days a week and the only way for workers to have some input is through a union.
Even in the U.S. Congress personnel there is pay and hours inequality. The Congress members make $174,000 a year and the workers who prepare and serve them meals, and bus tables make $11 an hour and nothing when Congress is in recess. I am not say these hard working people would do this, but I would have a hard time ensuring the food was superior for a congressman,woman or a senator who treated the food workers this way, and didn’t insist upon these workers being paid a living wage. Bon Appetite, you cheap 1 percent.
This goes right along with the decline in the wages of our college adjunct professors, who have become low-paid, part-time workers, lost the ability to become tenured, and have joined the fight against low-wages by establishing a movement called, “Faculty Forward” campaign.
http://facultyforward.adjunctaction.org/
These instructors are entrusted to teach our young to be the leaders and developers for our country as we retire. The Faculty Forward campaign is demanding $15,000 a course to cover all the work teaching a course entails; recourse for the for-profit higher education overcharging and under-educating students, like Corinthian Colleges, which has had to shut down; and making higher education for all students more affordable and accessible. Many of these instructors never considered the benefits of joining a union, association or auxiliary—until now.
Until workers realize that their fate is in their hands, things will not improve. Until workers realize that they are being taken advantage of by the greedy oligarchies, things will not improve. Until workers realize that they hold the solutions to their problems, things will not improve. It’s time to step up.
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
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