Union Perspectives

The power of the people and the common since of some of the money people have finally came together on the positive effect of a minimum wage hike to lessen wage inequality, and the positive effective of pumping cash into the economy from the spenders. Fifteen dollars an hour is the goal at this time, and Los Angeles is set to become the largest city in America to adopt the new minimum wage following the lead of Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, and there is a movement in New York City. Some states have set new minimum wages, such as Kentucky, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and California. The governors of these states appear to understand that slave wages hurt their economies, nine are Democrats, one is an Independent (former Republican) and six are Republican. The minimum wage is lower than the $15 an hour, but at least it is a start. The wage slaves just need ...

Climate change is here in the name of a drought and heat, which has provided the tools for extreme fires. In California, fires have already cost many lives, injuries and hundreds of millions of dollars so far. The final tally is still to be determined. So far, in California six civilians and two firefighters have died, and many were injured. In the Lake County alone, 1,958 structures were lost, 93 damaged and 2,953 structures threatened, displacing almost 3,000 people without homes, and the fire season is not even over. Also, wildland fires are now worldwide so climate change does not only involve us, here in the U.S., but its impacting people worldwide, especially New Zealand, Spain, Indonesia and Singapore so far. We, in the U.S., have the most problem facing firefighters in what we call wild land-urban interface, which is homes built in or very close to the forests. At this time there are about 10 million homes built in fire-prone rural areas an addition to the 6 million built in 1...

Has the world’s 99 percent finally figured out that they need to vote for and support people who will stand by and fight for the good life they deserve? People like Jeremy Corbyn, Britain’s newly elected Labor Leader is a socialist, and Canada’s liberal candidate, Justin Trudeau, promises to work for the toilers. Now, we have a leader in the U.S. who is running for president, Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, wants big money out of politics, universal healthcare, free public universities, expanded Social Security and a job’s program for youth, plus a living wage beginning at $15 an hour. There is a global movement going on at this time and the toilers are electing popular leaders in countries like Greece, Spain, Ireland, Turkey, Israel and Britain. These people are anti-austerity people and they rally thousands when they speak out for the dispossessed, challenge moribund elites, they are vilified as populists, deluded and dangerous, but they are winning elections. This movement is a...

As income inequality becomes more known across the world, people are responding, tired of the disparity and not being adequately compensated for their work. Income inequality is greater now than it was in the “Roaring ‘20s” and though we went through a recession, the rich keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. As Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders surges in the polls, the British just elected its version of Sanders when it elected Jeremy Corbyn as the Labor Party’s leader in a landslide victory, by almost 60 percent of the votes. Shocked by the outcome, Prime Minister Cameron resorted to fear and intimidation when he tweeted: “The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security.” It’s interesting how the U.S. and Britain’s conservative leaders tanked their economies by falsely leading their countries into war with Iraq followed by deep recessions, and the wage slaves paid dearly for their poor voting decisions. T...

The fight to keep a democracy from turning into a theocracy has to start with the people who have the money and want a theocracy to further control the masses. Jerry Falwell Liberty University donated $639,520.749 to a political action committee, America Family Association’s Donald Wildmon donated $17,955.438, Pat Robertson’s Christian Regent University $487,152.266, Beverly and Tim LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America gave $15,062.805, Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council gave $14,255, 533, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family donated $92,316,686, Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition gave $3, 375, 131, Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law and Justice donated $57,731,904, Tim LaHaye’s Council for National Policy gave $2,169,909, Ed Meese’s Alliance Defending Freedom gave $47,687, 860. These people want to control your life. They are anti-union. They want religious school vouchers, which degrade the public school system, and religion taught in public schools. They are against gay ...

Unions in California could be lost if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against dues-paying-union members. Ironically, the victims’ best hope in the Court is Justice Antonin Scalia. Often the Court’s leading conservative, but in a 1991 case, Scalia wrote that because public sector unions have a legal duty to represent all employees. It’s reasonable to expect all workers to share the costs. The case before the Supreme Court is Friedrichs v. Wilford and pits the anti-labor, union hating GOP against union groups in an attempt to water down the unions’ power at the bargaining table, and ultimately the political process. The case was brought by California public school teachers, represented by the Center for Individual Rights, who claim their First Amendment rights are being violated paying the union dues, hence unions typically support Democratic candidates, candidates who are more likely to support the workers over the corporations. The goal of backers of this lawsuit is to end the mandatory ...

This Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2015, labor is coming back in many ways and it is scaring the anti-union people who then start anti-union rhetoric saying things like labor unions are dying, but this is not true. In fact, my Waste Management company in Shasta County just joined a union. The home healthcare workers are making head way on overtime and wages. The $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage fights are making headway every day in city after city across the nation. We now have President Obama signing executive orders for government contract workers to get paid sick leave that includes family. Then there’s the fight to pay interns who are currently not being paid for the work they do, which makes them company slaves. Interns are beginning to understand that they are being taken advantage of by companies making money off the backs of unpaid workers. Then there is the fight for benefits and full-time work for adjunct professors at colleges who are again being taken advantage of; but the fight for ...

Why did the U.S. back the Turkish government to up the war on the Kurds? Was it just to save jet fuel by having a base in Turkey? If so then money is more important than Kurdish lives and when the Kurdish fighters are the only ground troops who are kicking the asses of the ISIS fighters. The Kurdish people have been divided into four places and they have been fighting this injustice for the last 100 years and the Kurds have never given up. The air strikes that we use to fight ISIS have to be coordinated by someone on the ground, which at this time is the Kurds. There needs to be a payoff for the only ground troops who are fighting and winning against ISIS. The Kurds would have had their own country except for what the U.K. did after World War I. The UK at the end of WWI denied the Kurds a homeland which turned the Kurds into nomads, but they have never given up on a homeland for there are 30 million oppressed nationality who struggle to survive in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. To ma...