Unions new slogan should be “Organize or Die.” We must be stronger by the 2024 elections because we don’t know for sure what the outcome will be. When we are striking or organizing, our workers will see the need to vote and vote for people who support workers. They see this when on the picket line or when working for a union they will vote for and to keep a union. This is when workers understand what is at stake and who their friends are.
So, in the 2024 election, workers will have a friendly president and government or they will have a president who will turn government on unions and its members. Either way, now is the time for all unions and its members to come together least for this year.
Unions that have problems with other unions have got to set aside their differences and issues at least for this year or we could very possibly lose our unions and the security unions provide to the workers. On the other hand, if union workers prevail in 2024 with the election of a Democratic president, Congress and Senate, we will be stronger with people in high places that support us and we can grow even stronger with more members in more unions.
According to Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in President Clinton’s cabinet, during President Biden’s presidency, the number of workplace strikes in this country hit a 23-year high last year. The number of workers on strike increased nearly 300 percent from 2022. “It’s a historic moment for the labor movement. Workers are done letting billionaires and corporations hoard all the wealth and power,” Reich said.
If Democrats take the elections, we can push for better pay, single-payer healthcare with no out of pocket costs, better pensions and a four-day work week, just to name a few improvements, and put us in line with other industrialized countries.
This is perhaps the most important election of our lives, because, if the Republican candidates win, we will lose the country we know and love and any progress workers have made so vote wisely. Get out and vote.
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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