Union Perspectives

Unions best weapon is the right to go to the streets. It is great to see our unions out in the streets with the public protesting ICE and the abuses they are using against innocent people and the things ICE are doing, like killing people. We must keep supporting these protests around the country. If we back down and lose the right to protest we, the unions, will lose the biggest weapon we have—our right to go to the street when we are wronged by the corporations or the government. So we can never lose this weapon of union labor and the people. Union members know that Trump and his corporate buddies do not like or want unions so why in the hell would any union member support or vote for any person who runs as a Republican Trump supporter--Trump and the GOP hate unions? If this is what you support then just go nonunion and lose all the benefits unions have fought for and become one of the poorly educated that Trump “loves,” though he’s incapable of any emotion aside from greed. Unions do...

How will the GOP try to stop the new teachers’ movement? The recent strikes are emboldening other states and city workers. Arizona teachers just voted to strike statewide, they were emboldened by Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky teachers. When considering going out on strike, organizations must have a plan, research their history and that of their opponent. In 1934, anti-union forces used Roy Zachary, a goon, who was the leader of the Silver Shirts, the U.S.’ equivalent to the German Brown Shirts, to try and break Minneapolis Teamster Rebellion, as portrayed in a book of the same name by Farrell Dobbs and a participant in the rebellion. The lessons learned from the Teamster Rebellion are as important today as they were then. The lessons included the “importance of rank-and-file control of the struggle, the benefits of socialist influence in the labor movement, and the necessity of militantly opposing the bosses--and, if need be, the government--in order to win.” The strike started...

Could Trump, if elected, be like President Woodrow Wilson? During his administration, President Wilson unleashed a reign of terror on the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Socialist Party of America. He imposed martial law on the mining towns of Montana and Arizona, suppressed the press, sent federal troops to enforce corporate rule in logging camps. He encouraged the American Protective League vigilantes to hunt down draft dodgers, burn down what they considered radical bookstores and even lynching radical immigrants. Think Brown Shirts or our own Silver Shirts. President Wilson also invaded Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Also, a little known fact, he sent two large expeditionary forces to aid the White movement and its military arm the White Army (also known as the White Guard or the Whites were a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces) who fought the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. While doing all of this, Wilson refused to lift ...

Will Donald Trump be the leader the right wing GOP has been waiting for to lead toady’s version of the America’s Silver Shirts? Silver shirts was based on Nazi Germany’s Brown Shirts. Trump has already gotten the support of the White Supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan and all the closeted angry racists of the GOP party. Remember, people laughed at Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini and said the two would never come to power. We all know the horror and terror they wreaked upon the world. If the U.S. doesn’t wake up this country could very well see the same thing happen here. The Silver Shirts were America’s answer to the Brown Shirts, same kind of ideology, same kind of entitlement over others and same kind of twisted propaganda that unsuspecting people fell for. There could be small revolutions fighting against terrorism—in all its forms, ethnic-type of discrimination, or even the young, disenchanted low-wage college people who have huge debts but low-wage jobs. The young who bought int...

What is the commonality between the old Nazi Brown Shirts of Germany, the Greek Golden Dawn Party and the USA Tea Party? One is they were funded by the oligarchies; two is they all started out as laughable, but soon became more powerful, more racist and more fascist than anyone thought possible. They are antiunion, against immigrants and will crucify anyone not willing to go along with their agenda. The Greek Golden Dawn traces their roots back to the Metaxas dictatorship in the late 1930s to the Nazi collaboration during the occupation in WWII. Now, it looks like the USA’s Tea Party is starting to use the Brown Shirts and Golden Dawn playbook and even the conservative party of England is getting on the bandwagon. It is the whole oligarchies against the proletarian class. It’s warfare: the money against the workers. The stupid people who think they belong with the rich are just bought and brainwashed. This is where the oligarchies find their troops. If these wannabe rich people woul...