Union Perspectives

One of the last things unions can get or have gotten for their members is job protection for 10 years or for life like France has, but this security is under assault. The French government has a bill which will, in the words of the anti-labor government, make France more competitive globally by extending the work, create less jobs and make layoffs easier. All this will do is enrich the companies and their greedy bosses. These French protests were as much against the political status quo as the labor bill. There’s no difference between the right-wing French Republicans and the left-wing Socialists parties. They are both the same just different names. Both are in the service of big business, which is just what is happening here in the U.S. with the Democrats and the GOP. But in France, the hard-left flank of the General Confederation of Labour, a national trade union, is holding nationwide strikes, which the government is saying it won’t back down. If the government wins in France, the ...

All labor unions must support the members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Union (IBEU) fight against Verizon’s attack on its members. The union must win its strike for this fight is all about union busting. These measures by Verizon effects some 39,000 workers. Verizon had profits in the billions, but wants to outsource jobs and cut benefits to the U.S. workers. Verizon is not in financial trouble so the only reason it would be doing this to its workers is to bust the union. Labor cannot let Verizon win this union busting fight as it would embolden other corporations to try to bust the unions representing their workers. When President Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, the other unions did not support the air traffic controllers. For many reasons, the lack of support opened the flood gates and most all corporations saw a chance to bust unions when the anti-union people saw an opportunity to say unions were not important anymore because they do not support...

Labor the world over at this time has no friends in this corporate world, and there is no political part that will support labor because unions don’t have the kind of money politicians are looking for. The political parties now side with Wall Street, corporations, big banks and lobbyists for this is where the money and political power is and where laws can be written—laws that will make them more money. One only has to look at the U.K., France, Ukraine, Spain, Greece, Turkey, South America, and, of course, here in the U.S. where labor laws have been shot full of holes and probably do more harm than good. Now is the time for a revolution of minimum wage workers, students burdened by student loans, all labor unions, people on Social Security, veterans, minorities and all the rest of us to band together to bring voter pressure on the Democrats, if not them, then a new people’s party because what we have now is not working for either party, Democratic or GOP. Are we in the U.S. reverting b...

Can the Bernie Sanders supporters multitask and hit the 1 percent on many fronts at once? Like wage inequality and single payer healthcare, labor rights, climate change and school debt. Let’s take the criminal interests being charged on student debt. There are 5 million student debt holders. What if they took the skills and knowledge they have and used it in the Sanders’ campaign to build a list of student debt holders, and then using this list to demand the right to bargain with the Department of Education and the banks to reduce or eliminate this debt, or they could just refuse to pay any more on the debts. There are groups out there trying to achieve the same thing, but it doesn’t appear their tactics are working. So maybe it’s time these institutions felt the Bern. Those fighting against student debt could look at what the group leading the FightFor$15 has done and follow their lead or look to how 2,000 doctors have come together to fight for single-payer healthcare under Sanders....

Labor needs to keep the revolution going if it wants to save the labor movement for they go hand in hand. Labor and its members are the only force that can defeat the 1 percent -1.1 percent and corporations. It looks like Hillary and by default Bill Clinton could possibly win the nomination and possibly the election, and there will not be much difference between the two, Bill and Hillary, because neither care about unions. They both are war hawks and both are corporatists, supporters of big banks and Wall Street people over us commoners. No one can count on what they say because it usually isn’t what they usually end up doing. Bernie has pulled Hillary to the left on subjects of Social Security, a minimum wage of $15 an hour, and anti-trade deals, but as soon as she is elected all these stances will revert back to her original, true beliefs. Who in the hell knows what Trump will actually do? Our only hope is staying with Bernie and if he doesn’t win, he can still be a leader in the re...