Skip to main content

Slow Walking Wage Increases

The $15 an hour minimum wage has been virtually stopped by governors passing $15 an hour minimum wage laws that will take years for workers to realize. The slow walking of the minimum wage is nothing more than an attempt to pacify workers and those who support them, but nothing more. What good will $15 an hour in six years do for workers today, especially those effected by minimum wage laws that have lots of loopholes. I cautioned about politicians who would slow walk an increase of the minimum wage a year or so ago and, unfortunately, I was right. New York and California are slow walking the states’ minimum wage increase, but they added such safety valves as having state officials who are to conduct annual analysis of the economy in each region to determine whether a temporary suspension of the scheduled increases is necessary, the government press release states. Now, guess who won’t be on the panel making the decisions on whether or not wages should be increased–wage slaves. The workers in California who would be eligible to earn the $15 an hour are those working for companies with 25 or more employees, and in New York, it’s companies with 10 or more employees so those working as, say at car washes, house cleaning, home healthcare and janitors just to name a few, are out of luck. The only correct answer is $15 an hour minimum wage now. Had the minimum wage kept up with inflation it would be closer to $24. What the wage slaves need to understand is that workers cannot count on elected people to do all the work. It has to come from the bottom up and then maybe there will be some elected people, like Bernie Sanders, who we can help. Sanders wants $15 now. Hillary Clinton says $12 an hour is enough, which is interesting given she charged $225,000 for a single speech. Also, there are the factors of healthcare, sick days, pensions and safe working conditions. These will only come from unions organizations and not politicians who represent the wealthy employers is the only current way to do this. Tell Sanders that unions need card check and close the loopholes in the National Labor Relations Board where workers can form a union, which is a civil right of all workers. There is hope and there has been movement, but the 1 percent is now using stall tactics and hoping workers will tire of this fight and take what crumbs are offered them. All minimum wage workers need $15 an hour now, not six years from now. Keep the snowball rolling and it will get bigger, if it stops or slows down it will melt. If that happens we all lose again. I hope all wage slaves will educate themselves on why the minimum should be raised and how it will help us all, especially our economy. On April 14th, the U.S. was fighting for it, and April 15, Canada will take up the fight.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's Time To Pick A Side

It’s time to pick a side. You want to have and keep unions with good wages and pensions, then it’s time to pick a side. You want to keep Social Security for yourself and family, it is time to pick a side. You want to get or keep Medicare and Obama’s Affordable Care Act, then it’s time to pick a side. It is us against the billionaires. The very rich got that way off the backs of workers, and now want to strip everything away from those workers. It’s time to pick a side. The very rich can buy countries, then make the people get on their hands and knees and grovel and beg for scrapes that usually go into the dumpster. It’s time to pick a side. Is this what we want for our family and our future? It’s time to pick a side. Get ready to fight for you and your families’ lives. There is no middle ground with these greedy people for they want it all—all the money—all the power—all the land so where does this leave us when they have all the commons, like water, land and airways? It’s time to pick...

Time for an Offense

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...

Senator Bernie Sanders & Team

The AFL is with Senator Bernie Sanders and it is the people’s only chance to push back against Elon Musk, who wants to dismantle our government. Musk family is said to have left South Africa because they could no longer exploit The native/black Africans so he bought Trump and now he’s laying waste to America in the name of progress. With Senator Sanders’ leadership and backing of all labor unions, we could put together the whole of 99 percent of the people and beat back the 2 percent destroying we what once had and stood for while also saving Social Security, healthcare for all, elder care, child care, while working on the climate change crisis (we are running out of time, as the weather is showing us). The workers need to go big, such as a four-day work week like other countries have; universal basic income (UBI) and Medicare for all for unhoused people, which would help get them off the streets. UBI goes right back into the local economies, which supports jobs for the other working p...