Union Perspectives

On a night in February 1933, Frances Perkins sat in front of the newly elected 32nd president of the United States as he told her that he wanted her to be the new Secretary of Labor. Perkins told President Franklin Roosevelt she would take the job if she could do it her way. Perkins wanted: a 40-hour work week, minimum wage, work compensation, unemployment compensation, a federal law banning child labor, direct federal aid for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized public employment service, and health insurance. The opposition to Perkins demands came from courts, businesses, labor unions--yes, labor unions, conservatives, and the chamber of commerce. Even with all this opposition against Perkins, a lot was accomplished. Today, we are trying to protect our Social Security, which we pay into, and even to expand it. We also want to go back to providing free college, like we used to have before politicians, like California Governor Ronald Reagan, redirected the money for f...

There are other alternatives to banking with the corporately owned big banks that screw over the little guy. Some of these alternatives are being used around the world and in a couple of places in the U.S. Alternative currency keeps local cash locally. Some foreign cities where this is being used is Basel, Switzerland, Nantes, France, and Bristol and Brixton, England. The Banque WIR, an alternative to the Swiss franc, has been using its own currency, the WIR, since 1934. Nantes created its own currency based on the WIR. Also, there are the Bristol pound and the Brixton pound used as alternative versions of the British pound. Here in the U.S., there is Ithaca, New York, called the Ithaca Convertible, one Ithaca dollar equals one U.S. 1 dollar. Then there is the Deli Dollars that arrived in 1989, started by Frank Tortoriello, a deli owner sold $10 for $8 to be used in his refurbished deli; followed by Massachusetts’ Berkshire Farm preserve notes or BerkShares in the early 1990s. Sa...

One way to have less wars is to finance the wars by taxes from the corporations who stands to profit from the destruction at the time the war is initiated, and to bring back the draft of men and women of all levels of society with few if any deferments. The money saved would pay for the free education and single-payer healthcare.  Then we could also focus on nonmilitary tools of national security policies, and enhance our homeland security. All wars should be pay as you go and not put on the credit card, as President George W. Bush did his invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which takes away the funds that support our social needs at home, for our people, and country. The trillion dollar cost that results fro these wars should be spent here and not passed on to our future generations. Everyone needs to understand the carnage of war, and at this time most Americans are insulated from the effects here and abroad. These wars are having a huge economic effect on the economy. The amount of...

Why do the workers of the world suffer such a high wage inequality? One reason is that about a trillion dollars a year that used to go to wages now goes to profit. The economy is split into the real economy and the parasite economy, according to billionaire entrepreneur Nick Hanauer. The workers who live and work in the real economy solve problems, build things that earn good wages and provide benefits, such as pensions and healthcare. These jobs provide taxes to support the federal government, local and state. The difference between these two economies is very real. The real economy pays the wage earner, which, in turn, drives the consumer demand and the parasite economy erodes. The real economy generates about $5 trillion a year in local, state and federal tax revenues; while the parasite economy is subsidized by taxes. The real economy delivers on the promise of capitalism. The parasite economy relentlessly undermines it. It is not the poor who are the deadbeats, it is the parasi...

There are unintended consequences of the 1 percent’s greed in offshoring corporations to save on taxes and labor costs. This greed has awakened the Have Littles to the fact that there is and has been a war waged against them by the 1 percent. This has been going on for about 40 years and most of this scheming has gone unnoticed because the corporate media has blocked coverage of it. Now the greed has gone too far and will bite the anti-worker 1 percent in the ass and the governments that support them. The people have had all they can take and are demanding their rights. Rights that include good wages, healthcare, pensions, unions, free education, and protection of our environment and climate. The sad thing is that most of these rights are provided to citizens in other countries, some countries are trying to take them away from their citizens and those countries where the citizens are fighting for these right—the sad fact is that other countries got the ideas to give or take these righ...