Union Perspectives

Young people who are not yet in the work place will get their first impressions of unions from sound bites or negative reports from anti-union sources like the Republican party and GOP corporations and the media they control. Labor is missing a lot of chances to educate potential members by putting a positive spin on what labor unions are and how they can help workers. Most of our public education system is taught by union teachers. They could tell their students indirect or innocuous stories about how unions have effected their lives and that of the students. For instance, a teacher/professor could say, something like, ‘union negotiations have kept class size down so that, as a teacher, I can have more time with each of those students who might need more help.’ Or, like I’ve heard, ‘Before our teachers unionized, I had to work a second job to make ends meet.’ Teachers could also incorporate labor history into U.S. history, such as when describing the Great Depression or how children ...

Your unions are only as strong as your participation. All union members of all unions need to read and understand their union contracts , and the rules and regulations. They need to know all elected officials of their unions, local and national. Are your dues paid to the local or national union coffers? Also, where, exactly, do your union dues go? What are unions’ supporting or investing our dues in? Trust but verify. When and where are your union meetings held? When are the election of your officers? What elected jobs are there and what volunteer jobs are there in your union. What is happens if a union member is charged with a violation of union rules? What training is there for your union? When you have the answers to the above questions, then it’s time to learn about your union’s history and the labor movement. The good and the bad because you cannot defend your union if you don’t know all bout your union’s history and the history of the labor movement. Just like the Art of War ...

Workers here in the U.S. and around the world have had enough of low pay, bad working conditions, bad healthcare and not enough working hours or too many with no overtime pay. Employers forcing employees to work faster create a safety issue, like what occurs at the Amazon warehouses, which employees report accidents, such as getting shocked by touching metal railings, and even deaths occurring. In Chile, there are 1,700 workers are on strike at Walmart due to low wages and job safety issues from forced to work faster and job cuts. This strike has closed 130 stores. In California, the grocery outlets of Albertsons, Ralphs, Vons and Pavilions, workers are rallying for higher wages and more hours. The local union is United Food and Commercial Workers, one worker said when they asked for more hours, their hours were reduced. “We are not even making minimum wage,” the person said. The London Train Cleaners joined a 48-hour work stoppage over the accelerated shift schedules and pay cuts. ...

The time is right for unions to organize and rebuild unions that will take the fight to the GOP anti-union/anti-worker machines. We should just look at how the West Virginia teachers won their fight for a wage increase. The teachers were organized, they planned every detail of their walkout in advanced to ensure the success of the walkout. The organizers worked with students’ parents and local businesses to ensure the walkout would not harm those in need. Daycare centers and meals were organized in advanced so the students who were dependent on the school lunches would not go without. This walkout was not just a single school, but the entire state. Had the organizer organized one school, the board of trustees would have beat the school employees back, but organizing the entire state, the sheer number of employees standing together against a single state entity, allowed the employees to win. If union workers follow the example of the West Virginia workers’ wildcat strike or what the o...

In Honduras, the people are done with graft, crooked politicians and greed. With thousands in the street, they are marching to get their president to leave office and be replaced by a new, honest government. Is this what the U.S. government is headed for? If the 1 percent oligarchies can and have bought most of the governments from the federal level to the city level. It looks and sounds not much different from Honduras, maybe under different names, but the results are the same. The 97 percent of the people have lost control of their government with the loss of their vote that is now bought by billionaires. For example, to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership, congressmen John Boehner received $5.3 million; Kevin McCarthy received $2.4 million; Paul Ryan $2.4 million; and Pat Tiberi $1.6 million for their yes votes. The fight against money in politics is now fought in the streets and when this happens the blame will be in the heads of the money people who pay lobbyists. In the long run t...

Unions need to become very unpredictable in their overall strategy and their tactics. They need to become ghosts with no financial assets, which would give the ghost leaders no fear of losing assets in a court of law and would be hard if not impossible to link responsibility to a ghost. This type of warfare tactic was adapted from the Scythian king and used against the Persian Army of Darius in the early 6th century. Darius lost and retreated without ever having a chance to fight because he could not get King Scythian to stop and fight and the reason for this was because the Scythians had no cities or cultivation for their enemies to destroy or take. They had nothing to defend, no assets to protect. If unions took on this practice, today’s court of law would have nothing to take from unions. Scythian said killing the enemy is easy, but it’s the finding of him that is difficult. This is as true today as ever. Your enemy will not meet you on your own terms, only on his and this is why as...

Stingray with upgrades costs $640, 000. Stingrays are part of a post 9/11 push by the federal government to step up local police departments Intel gathering and coordination. Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has given more than $54 billion to local law enforcement in part for high tech surveillance equipment, like the Stingray, which eavesdrops on phone calls, and with an assortment of add-ons, like the Fish Hawk listens in on calls. The Harpoon broadens the Stingray’s range. The Amber-Jack antenna helps pinpoint individual phones. The King Fish analyzes call patterns, doing in one stroke. The U.S. military developed Stingray technology in the 1990s. The Local law enforcement started using it in 2003. There are at least 48 departments now using this technology. This type of surveillance monitoring and infiltrating of rallies, soap box speeches, arresting speakers and intimidating strikers, which even went as far as shooting demonstrators is not new. These types of tact...

The workers of the U.S. and the world are fighting, but steadily losing the fight. We now have no help from any type of government. The government and its elected officials are bought and paid for by Wall Street, Big Banks, corporations and the 1 percent. Neither party in the U.S. will now help the workers or unions. The unions are now seen as impotent in the eyes of the GOP and now a large part of the Democrats. With the loss of members comes the loss of money, which makes the unions irrelevant. At this time, the way things are going it is looking like the only thing left for the wage slaves of the U.S. and the rest of world is the streets with pitchforks. Art of War says you should never push your enemy into a corner with no option but to fight to the death. This is what is being done worldwide, in places like Ukraine, Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, Mexico, South American countries and even in Canada. Maybe this is what the wage slaves needed to get motivated, to awake them to the fact t...

Inequality is the scourge of the U.S. and the world. Just ask French economist Thomas Piketty, or U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen or many intelligent business leaders, and they will tell you that inequality is at its highest in a hundred years. Inequality is the Ebola of the capitalist system, which bleeds out the 99 percent so the 1 percent can continue to make its obscene profits. Just like Ebola, the capitalist system and its inequality is spreading worldwide and it is or will affect everyone if not stopped. When the proletarians have no money to buy the services and goods that the wage slaves produce then the unemployment grows, which puts a larger burden on government. The government has less money because there are fewer taxpayers at every level. Inequality is a black hole, which will get deeper and larger until it sucks all and everyone into it bringing along with it frustrations, fear and uncertainty, and this is where the breeding grounds are created for the groups li...

Competition can be used against the Haves. The Haves possess and, in turn, are possessed by power, obsessed with the fear of losing power; their every move is dictated by the idea of keeping their power. The way of life of the Haves is to keep what they have and wherever possible to shore up their defenses so now we have the Haves 1 percent determined to keep its power and in constant fight with the Have Nots. At the same time they are in conflict among themselves. Power grows or dies therefore in order to keep power the status quo must get more; but from whom? There is just so much that can be squeezed out of the Have Nots, so the Haves must take it from each other. This cannibalism of the 1 percent is a good time for the Have Nots to attack, such as the $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage. The Have Nots should try to pick fights between fast food places by picketing one, which would bring more business to the one where there are no pickets. Then, when the owners see what is happening t...

We Have Nots wage slaves of the world must make changes ourselves. Hannibal said we will either find a way or make one. We can start by asking why, who and how. Asking these questions is the start of change. Some say it’s no coincidence that the question mark is an inverted plow, breaking up the hard soil of old believes and preparing for the new growth. Workers must have a plan for the working people that are for the good of the people. Remember when you start the war between the 1-2 percent and the 98-99 percent; the 99 percent need a starting point and a stopping point. How the war will be waged hopefully without destroying what we are fighting for. In President Lincoln’s First Inaugural, he said, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. The people who should take heed of the options of the masses and not keep taking ...

Old International Workers of the World’s (IWW) dream of a worldwide workers fight for economic justice is coming. This has got to feel very good for the old IWW’s Wobblies and it is showing respect for the martyrs who gave their lives or did prison time on mostly trumped up charges. All workers and retired people need to stand up and support the $15 an hour wage or a living wage, which some, like California Rep. Barbara Lee (D) say should be in the $26 an hour range, which is where it would be today if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation. The proletarians worldwide have awakened to the fact that no government is going to help them, they’re on their own. Just like always. It is the families and fellow workers who help you. Remember when you have nothing you don’t have much to lose and this is where the oligarchies have made a strategic mistake. You never force your enemy into a corner (Art of War) and left them with no alternatives, but to fight. Also remember if you are afraid...

Where is the wage slaves’ leadership or leaders? Or will there be a leaderless movement, like the Wobblies used? Has the time passed for a leader, such as Martin Luther King, Eugene Debs, Bill Hayward, Reuther brothers, Mother Jones, Joe Hill, John L. Lewis, or Cesar Chavez, among so many others. Is it even possible for these types of leaders to serve in positions of leadership against the corporations that have bought and paid for law enforcement? Knowing this, wage slaves will have to depend on Anonymous and WikiLeaks types of guerilla warfare with a type of underground and Occupy movement that has no assets or set home base. A type of organization that is very mobile with very good intelligence and tactics, such as the four used in Art of War: #1) when the enemy advances, we retreat; #2) when the enemy halts, we harass; #3) when the enemy seeks to avoid a battle, we attack; #4) when the enemy retreats, we pursue. We need to train our fighters in Art of War strategy. If one woman st...

In order to make fire or to put fire out you need the fire triangle: oxygen, fuel and heat. Take one away and the fire goes out. For the capitalists’ consumer system to thrive like fire it needs: money, demand and product, if you take one of these away and capitalism dies. Let’s look at what happens when 400 individuals accumulates more than $2 trillion and keeps it in their pockets year after year. This is the start of inequality, which causes poverty. The USA now is at the highest level of inequality in our history. We sit between Venezuela and Uruguay. We are even higher than every major European or East Asian nation in our inequality, which causes poverty through economic mismanagement. The corporations don’t spend their money; they just sit on it, which drains money from the economy and the “fire” goes out. With no corporations spending there will be no jobs, which means no workers spending, which means no demand for products (the fire is snuffed out). With fewer jobs and with t...

Are the 99 percent wage slaves preparing for the spring offensive to better their lives and narrowing the inequality gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent. It is time to plan the offensive strategy for the wage fight for $15 to $16 an hour. The 99 percent must look at and understand the weaknesses and strengths of our side and that of the corporate GOP (Art of War). The 99 percent must gather intel on the corporations through research or living agents who can get information. They need to be clever, resourceful, talented, and wise. Then, with good intel, the planning starts. With knowledge of their weaknesses and strengthens, the timing of the offensive will depend on your intel and other factors, such as weather, terrain, troops, supplies, money and training. It can be as simple as blocking entrances to building and complicated as Anonymous’ hacking. Remember, all warfare is based on deception. Some strategies to consider are as follows: when capable, feign incapacity, then ac...

Have the Wisconsin wage slaves figured out that forming a band of brothers and sisters is better than listening to Fox News and electing people who want to destroy their financial way of life? If so, maybe this would be the reason union membership is up in Wisconsin. After Wisconsin workers saw the third largest decline in the nation in 2012, it is now seeing the seventh largest gains in membership from 11.25 percent to 12.34. This surprised even the unions because many believed corruptness of the state’s governor and his Koch-backed minion had essentially destroyed the unions in Wisconsin. Does this also mean that the wage slaves have figured out that taking the high ground to do battle is the way to win, which is putting pressure on the anti-union elected officials and electing people who believe in the cause and will not worry about losing their next election to the anti-union GOP opponents? If there is no candidate who fits that explanation, then put your money and energy into buil...

Bullies: kids bully with their mouths and fists, billionaires bully with money. The DeVos, Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the Walton family are just some of the oligarchy bullies, who see unions as an enemy of freedom and union leaders as thugs. Interesting the only freedom these billionaires are concerned with are their own. Their hatred of all things union and why they want to destroy unions is because they cannot control unions and unions are the only thing standing between their obscene wealth and making the U.S. a Third World country. To these greedy bastards money is the true power and with that they want to destroy the power source for the unions’ money by passing “right to work’ laws in Michigan and other states. If passed, these laws will essentially ruin unions and defund Democrats’ election contributions. The oligarchies are looking to the 2016 presidential race. They will push for less government, less taxes, fewer regulations, which all, in their selfish eyes, destro...

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.” If all of us, the 99 percent, would adhere to this sentiment by Roosevelt we would take away about 90 percent of the anti-workers’ playbook. Whenever the oligarchies want to stop or destroy a movement, program or an idea which would advance the good of the working people, they use fear, such as the everlasting attacks on healthcare, Medicare, and the never-ending battle against Social Security and unions. All of which perpetuates dignity and freedom for the wage slaves. Just think what our lives would be like without these things. We would literally be at the total mercy of the 1 percent. Our young people would not be able to see a future and our wage slaves would soon sink into despair and this would be what the 1 percent would think would be a victory; but in reality it would be a death sentence to capitalism as we know it today. Fear and despair does not motivate people to work harder, study harder or em...

The $15 to $16 an hour minimum wage that the low-wage workers are asking for has a lot of positive to it, such as helping to end corporation welfare and these large corporations like Walmart paying below living wages and then the tax payers having to supplement their workers by way of food stamps and Medicaid, school lunches. Usually the cost for a low-wage worker is about $10,000 a year so if the corporations paid a living wage like they should, that corporation welfare money could go toward other things, which would benefit all of the 99 percent, and, of course, better wages would mean more jobs and maybe some families could go back to a one-wage earner per family, which would be good for the children, in some cases. In order to get the win on wages each wage slaves must want it and be willing to make the commitment just like going on a diet, quit smoking, getting sober. Each person must do it and then find others with the same will and tenacity to stay with it until you win. But jus...

Will the Dream of Debs, written by Jack London, ever come true? I think that it could happen or some version of it will occur. The dream was the Holy Grail of labor, which is a general strike over all of the United State. Step one was that labor stock pile enough food and necessities to outlast the 1 percent; sort of like what the Mormons teach their followers to do: stock pile food for a year. Then the union members have to save enough money to pay their bills for when union go on strike. In the past, strikes were usually lost because members ran out of food and money. The unions would have to be self-sufficient to shut down everything at once or to do a rolling strike planned to take place at different places to stay ahead of the corporations trying to neutralize the efforts of the strike, such as tying up the docks. Then tying up the trucks, shutting off the fuel at the refineries, followed by the railroads and power plants, and with the communication we have today, this could be a...