National Strike Before It's Too Late

Is it time for a national strike plan? Trump is destroying the union rights of thousands of workers by stripping union rights from six federal agencies, like the National Weather Service, NASA, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security Environmental Protection Agency by ending collective bargaining and taking over the office spaces used by unions. Trump has said to just ignore contracts for employees in specific unions. So federal workers who lost rights can no longer fight agencies over contract violations, such as safety and meal allowances. Workers are being fired without cause. Government workers are the core of labor’s power base and there has been no push back. The next thing they’ll go after is prevailing wage laws, which will hurt the non-workers for they will no longer receive the prevailing, which is the same as union wages, but the union workers will still get their union wages and benefits. However, will they face being underbid on jobs by nonunion shops so all will lose except the corporations, who are nonunion that pays whatever the hell they want, like $7.50 per hour that is still being paid to federal workers. Trump and the GOP, who will not stop until they destroy all unions and there has been no pushback from Democrats. We, in labor, keep saying that workers have the ultimate power because we can withhold our labor. So, where is the mass mobilization effort? Organized labor has only 6 to 10 percent or workers unionized. We cannot afford to not fight back. We are now under the most ruthless anti-labor president since the 1920s. This is the fight of our lives for labor unions and our democracy.