Workers engaged in the “Gig” job should study the playbook of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies. They fought for free speech and one big worldwide union with a cooperative common wealth, which would be free of class and national distinction.
The Wobblies were founded in 1905 and are still around today. The Gig workers should consider joining the IWW since most of the Wobblies were part-time workers and travelled the country looking for work.
The 9-to-5 jobs that a worker could retire from are just about gone. Four out of 10 Americans now make a living through nontraditional work schedules. There are a large group of freelance, contract, part time, temporary, virtual shared, and patched-together work. All that the workers fought for since the 1880s and the 21st century have been lost and we are now back to a kind of scavenger economy and existence.
Forbes magazine predicted that by 2020, 50 percent of the American labor force will work at least partly on a freelance basis. In 2015, the Government Accountability Office reported that workers without secured jobs were at 40.4 percent and this army of temporary workers, contracted and the self-employed will grow so what is to be done?
A $15 an hour minimum age would be a start or everyone could receive a Universal Basic Income (UBI) check to cover their basic needs. UBI would be a form of monthly insurance much like Social Security. Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX founder, said in a CNBC interview, that the rate of technological advances is replacing human workers at a “lightning speed pace.” If robots are doing the job, someone has to take the vacations.
Other countries are starting to look at giving their citizens UBI checks. We, worldwide, are running out of jobs, and extra money in people’s pockets to spend on the little luxuries in life. No jobs, no money, no economy—so, is it time to revisit the IWW way.
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...
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