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Unionize Rural Areas

We are seeing the highest labor unionization since 1965. Business owners and workers have nothing in common. Owners want profits and political clout and workers want respect for their work and proper compensation for that work that makes the owner rich. The rich, like the Charles Koch Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Freedom Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and the State Policy Network are antiunion organizations that fund GOP conservative think tanks. The people behind these foundations are motivated by one thing and that is to destroy unions and weaken workers’ rights. Every time Republicans get into office, they have the same strategy to cut safety nets for the rest of the population while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and then threaten to shut down the government in a tantrum like a three-year-old child. It is estimated that the wealthy American evaded almost $66 billion in federal taxes. The top 2,000 highest earning tax dodgers owe $923 million in taxes so that explains why the rich want Republicans in office to protect their interests and cut Internal Revenue Services’ finding. That worked for years until now. The IRS has collected $160 million from these tax evaders so far. The way to fight these people and foundations, who have unlimited money, is to strike. Organizers need to bring strategic sectors of the economy to a standstill and demand a society that works for everyone, especially workers, who are the ones who make the wealth of the billionaires. Now is the best time for labor to organize the corporations that have seen massive profits, tight labor markets, widespread outrage at our country’s inequality, the overwhelming support for organizing and strikes by Americans. Employers whined that no one wanted to work, now they’re whining workers won’t quit. As economist Robert Reich points out, corporate America loves to blame workers for everything. Labor is missing an opportunity by not putting more effort into rural cities and counties where nonunion shops and plants have no help trying to get unions. Labor needs to reach out to these workers. Big Bill Haywood of the International Workers of the World said in 1905-1908 that we are going down into the gutter to get at the mass of working people and bring them up to a decent plane of living. Let’s get started.

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