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 each other.
Then, unions slowly started to realize what was happening to their ranks when workers themselves became anti-union and the Democratic Party began to see unions as irrelevant as a money source and, instead, turned to Wall Street, big banks, hedge funders and large corporations, like big pharma. At this time, unions are not even at the table on policies for the Democratic Party’s platform.
Two things needs to happen: 1) Verizon workers must not lose the strike, and 2) Bernie Sanders must win the presidential election or at least be at the table when the Democratic platform is put together. If not, this could be the last gasp for unions. Then the workers and their unions will be backed into a corner with no way to win and will have no choice but to go to the streets.
I wonder which union-busting corporation, like Blackwater, is supplying Verizon with scabs.
The unions that are supporting the IBEU at this time are the Hotel Trades Council, janitors and building workers of the SEIU, the New York State Nurses Association, the Transport Workers Union Local 100, postal workers, and the United Food and Commercial Workers. So why aren’t our unions like the sheet metal’s S.M.A.R.T. or the Teamsters?
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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