Union Perspectives

The AFL/CIO needs to start kicking some union ass. All unions must start having meetings and having union-oriented speakers and focus their meetings on their union history and struggles to get started and how to keep our unions. It's up to us. Unions did not just happen. There was blood spilled in the streets and many spent time in jail, and some even died for the union cause. Men, women and children were burned alive in tents, like at Ludlow, Colorado. Our union members’ families need to know what is going to happen with the GOP in charge they are out to destroy our unions. There is no one coming to our rescue. Forbes identified 902 billionaires on its 2025 list, but in 2024 the World Population Review reports there are 813. At what point does a person realize they have more money than they need or will spend in their life times. They want low wages, no benefits, no healthcare, not even Social Security. They want slave labor so they can become trillionaires. So at every meeting t...

California is first in labor again. Unions are back and have been driven by the low wage fast food worker. They fought hard for $15 an hour and it looks like, with the new California fast food law. They could be looking at $22 an hour, and a chance to unionize the enter fast food industry. Next step would be healthcare, pensions and vacation. If this happens California, the next states are Florida, Texas, New York and Idaho. In California, there are a half million fast food workers. This law targets bonafide abuses, but also furthers unions’ goals of collective bargaining with the entire industry instead of trying to organize fast food restaurants one at a time. Workers are now thinking about what is best for their families and are willing to fight for them and joining or forming a union is the best way, and the more that do the more will join for all like to be on the side of the winning team. But California unions now need to go out into the country. We have the large cities, but hav...

Unions are making a comeback and have been driven by the low wage fast food workers, the ones who suddenly became essential workers during the pandemic. They recognized their worth and began the fight for $15-an-hour wages. It looks like with the new California fast food law, they could be looking at $22 an hour and a chance to unionize the entire fast food industry. The next stop would be vacations, healthcare and pensions. If this happens in California, the next states to follow would be Florida, Texas, New York, and Idaho. In California, there are a half million fast food workers. This law targets bonafide abuses, but also furthers union goals of collective bargaining with the entire industry instead of trying to organize fast food restaurants one at a time. Workers are now thinking about what is best for them and their families, and are willing to fight for them adjoining or forming unions is the best way to go. The more workers that join unions will join because people tend to fol...

If passed, Assembly Bill 257 would give the 725,000 franchise fast food employees real bargaining power. The Service Employees International Union is pushing this bill, which would give unions a foothold into the low wage, no benefits industry where unionization has long been elusive. California has been a proving ground for the unions’ efforts to advocate for low wage, no benefit workers. Los Angeles adopted a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2015, and the state followed suit in 2016. There has been some success as these workers wake up to the fact that they hold the true power in their jobs, without them, the franchise holders have nothing. At Starbucks, the employees are voting on unionizing at more and more stores across the country. The difference is, Starbucks is owned by one corporation that does not have franchises. The Assembly Bill covers franchised workers and gives these employees a direct voice with their employers. does have to answer to the National Labor Relations Board....

The dream of Eugene Debs and the rest of the old union warriors fighting for unions are back. The working people have awoken to the Have Nots and Have Littles and are willing to take on the big boys and win by just staying together and using the existing labor laws to their benefit, knowing the old union organizers bleed in their fight to achieve these protections. Six Starbucks stores in New York signed cards to unionize in the last two days and employees at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York put the first crack in giant’s shield by becoming the first warehouse to unionize. The working people, which some call the working poor, have seen that they can win and who does not want to be on the winning team? All unions need to be supporting each other for a win for one union is a win for all unions. This opportunity results in a life time of changes for the Have Nots and Have Littles. It did for me. Our union leaders at the AFL/CIO should not lose this momentum that we have at...

Why aren't the army of retired union workers used in the fight to unionize today’s workers? Why aren’t the unions using their retired members? Is it because the union bosses do not know how or is it that they just don’t know how to organize retired workers or get these older union members fired up to join the new workers wanting union protraction? There is a lot of bias out there against retirees or ‘geezers’ as we’re known, but including them in this fight just might benefit all involved because a lot of us have been where today’s workers are now. The unions are wasting of experience and talent by not including us in today’s union resurgence. Retirees could be at every local public government meeting—city councils, board of supervisors, fire boards, school board and many others—and during the public comment section of the speaking about the needs of workers and retirees. During this section of the meetings, speakers are usually given two minutes to speak about anything not on the ...

Amazon should be the training grounds for union organizing. All unions should send apprentices and shop stewards to do a week on the streets to help unionize Amazon. This could be the training grounds of what works and what doesn’t. The experience the young union people will help build our unions larger and better, and we will be training new leaders. The unions all need to come together as one to win this fight to put a union in one of the largest and richest companies in the world. There are playbooks out there, such as the one about Debs and the Pullman Railroad Strike. The Ford Motor Company employees’ sit-in strike. The big people and corporations have been brought down before. We must all band together like we did in the 1950s with the AFL/CIO, the two largest unions combined as one with one leader. A thorough investigation into the failure of the union attempt at Amazon in Alabama needs to be done before we continue. We can’t just blame the workers and community. We need to u...

The time is now to take advantage of the old adage, “In all adversity there is a window of opportunity” in this case for change. There are a multitude of reasons why people are protesting in the street today, and all have a common adversary corporate greed. The last time corporate America was scared of the workers was when the CIO and AFL were going to band together. These two organizations had been at odds for years basically driven by egos, as the CIO workers were less skilled workers than the AFL workers, who were trades people earning more money,. The corporations took full advantage of the animosity, pitting workers against each other. Corporations did not want the two unions forming one large union. Workers figured they were pawns and decided to combine their efforts under one union baring both names: AFL/CIO with George Meany as the president. He was a plumber by trade. The corporations panicked after this happened and started an anti-union campaign, that continues to this day. ...

April 15 is the big one! This rally will be worldwide for the fight for $15 an hour minimum wage. This fight is for not only fast food workers, but for all low-wage workers, such as adjunct professors at colleges, who are now part-time and non-tenured with no pensions, home healthcare workers, airport workers, childcare workers, Walmart-Target-Kmart-Home Depot, workers, car wash workers, auto lube workers and the list goes on. Corporations have decimated the pay of workers by demeaning the jobs as only unskilled or uneducated or student work jobs as if that had anything to do with the work being done. There will be actions on 170 college campuses, as well as cities around the U.S. and abroad. There will be around 2,000 groups, including Jobs with Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy will show their support, as well. This will be the largest mobilization America has ever seen in decades. This push is being headed and supported by the Service Employees International Union. This ...

One key factor in a labor resurgence could well be the fight for $15 if there is good movement on this. It could excite the wage slaves and restore faith in the power of the masses, which has always been there, but just repressed by anti-labor GOP people of the 1 percent who have vilified the wage slaves and makes the unions look like losers. We need a win for $15 in ’15 and the April 15 Fight for $15 rally and unions and labor councils should be helping with this fight. And I, a retired sheet metal organizer, have not heard one word from the sheet metal union and at my last labor council meeting (AFL/CIO) not one word. So, is there a reason workers won’t unite? Labor is now at a 6.6 percent in the private sector. This is about the same level as when the Ludlow Massacre occurred in 1914 in which several miners and a 12-year-old were shot to death by the National Guardsmen. Then when the canvas tents that they were living in caught fire and 11 children and two women were killed. This i...

Why can’t the Democrats have a Tea Party-like movement like the GOP—this movement would be the proletariats and wage slaves and normal, intelligent people who will fight for higher wages, fight against inequality of the lower 47 percent. Yes, it would be nice if there was a strong labor party and maybe there will or could be one day, but in the meantime why not use the tools that are there, which is the brand name Democrats/progressive and the brand name is about all you would get for you would not get much money from corporations or even the Democratic Party. So it would be funded by the wage slaves and some smart forward thinking unions or maybe even new unions. Yes, it would be much easier to just go with a socialist party, but to do that and win there would have to be a lot of education on what socialism actually is and what it isn’t—communism. At this time I think there could be a parallel program, which would support each other and benefit the Democratic Party and the 47 percent....

Unions must show what they can do for their membership at this time—not what they have done before. People have a short memory. You are always judged by your last win or loss and unions cannot at this time survive on past laurels. Should labor at the AFL open the ranks, sort of like the old Minneapolis Teamsters Local 74, like a worker assistance program where you ask the workers to pay a small amount each month to belong? In return they would receive information on which labor union needs workers or apprentices, provide news on labor rights, such as federal and state laws, maybe even an electronic labor newspaper and an Internet resource center for information. The non-union workers would have support in their working place protests such as people, law advice, and maybe even representation by an attorney. This would be a wage slaves’ club for all non-union workers who would like to make their lives better. In the old days, this type of organization even offered cheap life insurance ...

Labor fights that were lost or won have always been decided by public opinion, even though there was contributing events, such as the National Guard, law enforcement, and court orders. Public opinion is a largest factor for without public support the elected politicians will not support you whether it’s local government (cities and counties), states, or even federal, for their life is controlled by public opinion, and, of course, lobbyists money, but in the end it still is public opinion that matters. So when labor starts a campaign, it must first test the waters, then plan from there. At this time, the $15 to $16 per hour minimum wage is enjoying very good public opinion ratings, but it needs to be pushed to at least 70 percent of the favorable rankings and made to hold at that rate, which will take money to advertise the benefits and explain about the corporations, that are supporting or leaning in favor of this increase in the minimum wage for all wage slaves in the low-wage indust...

The fight for minimum wage shows the GOP is using Hitler’s playbook of 1933 against workers is in the legislation introduced and supported by 36 senators led by Tom Coburn and Rand Paul. This bill would make it virtually impossible for Congress to enact any legislation intended to improve working conditions or regulate the work place, such as a federal minimum wage, eliminate the National Labor Relations Board laws, overtime pay, and discrimination laws. They could, under the Roberts’ U.S. Supreme Court, roll back existing protections for workers, such as Medicare and the 1918 Child Labor laws. But, as I see it, this is about the push for a $15 an hour wage for our low-income workers so our wage slaves should also be looking at what the cities, counties and states can do to make the minimum wage increase a reality. These government entities do have the authority to set a minimum wage for their people and most federal laws start with what people in the cities, counties and state gover...

It is past time for all unions and want-to-be unions to quit shooting each other in the foot. All we have to do is look back in history and see what we did wrong and what our leaders at that time did some of which still haunt us to this day. For example, one of the leaders was George Meany, head of the AFL/CIO at the time, gained control over the unions. Looking back we should have embraced Walter Reuther of the UAW. Reuther saw that we had to bring all wage slaves up to a living standard whether or not they were unionized, and we workers had a good chance with Eugene McCarthy when he ran for president. McCarthy was pro union, more than any other candidate except for maybe Roosevelt. But the unions decided to support the GOP. How did this work out for us? Hell, we even had labor unions vote for Ronald Reagan and then Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union's contract even after they voted and spent money on his election. Still the unions have not learned for the postal work...

At a union meeting an AFL/CIO representative was trying to convince the union leaders there to educate their workers about how the GOP are going to attack them this election and with only 100 plus days left before the election I would call this crisis management. Why do the union leaders have to educate their workers for they should know what they’re up against and they should know themselves—their union history—for the Art of War says if you do not know yourself you will lose half of your battles; and if you do not know yourself and do not know your enemies then you will lose all your battles. I think that the AFL/CIO should spend most of its money on explaining about the unions and what they have done for the working people—whether they are union or not—and also we should show the faces of the new and old union leaders, which were the real heroes of the working class wage slaves and there are many. What the unions have been doing is giving money to promote unknown wannabe polit...