Union Perspectives

So, we let the GOP have a tax bill that gave the very rich at the top billions and us at the bottom very little. The tax gives away to the rich was a win-win for the GOP to pay back their large donors, and now they can say there is no money for safety net programs or returning the money to Social Security that Congress and presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush “borrowed” or used as a piggy bank to fund their bad policies: Johnson and Bush the war, Reagan tax breaks for the wealthy who didn’t need it. They raided the program we paid for, and Medicare/Medicaid. Congress needs to pay the people back and with interest and then keep their hands off our money. The GOP likes to call Social Security and Medicare entitlement spending, but if you check your pay stub you’ll see the deductions for these programs and that we pay taxes on the Social Security as we receive it. The GOP also lie and say that these programs are the root of the worsening federal fiscal problems...

The workers are losing while our labor leaders sleep or hide out, hoping they can hold onto their position until they retire. Our labor leaders appeared to have given up the rural areas and pulled their efforts into the big cities. This is like having a fort with a moat around it and think they are safe. We all know forts can be conquered in the long run. It’s as if labor leaders learned nothing from the Clinton era. We, at this time, are losing with the Right to Work laws being passed in 27 states, and now there is legislation in Congress for a national Right to Work law. Couple this with legislation in Congress to ban the Davis-Bacon Act on prevailing wage law, and the attacks on union pensions. These things will drive the nail into the heart of unions. This is happening in other countries, like the UK and France, who are electing leaders, such as Marine Le Pen, a far right leader. We, here, in the U.S., cannot just depend on the Bernie Sanders-types. We need new, strong unions wi...

This Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2015, labor is coming back in many ways and it is scaring the anti-union people who then start anti-union rhetoric saying things like labor unions are dying, but this is not true. In fact, my Waste Management company in Shasta County just joined a union. The home healthcare workers are making head way on overtime and wages. The $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage fights are making headway every day in city after city across the nation. We now have President Obama signing executive orders for government contract workers to get paid sick leave that includes family. Then there’s the fight to pay interns who are currently not being paid for the work they do, which makes them company slaves. Interns are beginning to understand that they are being taken advantage of by companies making money off the backs of unpaid workers. Then there is the fight for benefits and full-time work for adjunct professors at colleges who are again being taken advantage of; but the fight for ...

If the U.S. and the world over ever want to see a robust middle class again there must be jobs where a worker earns a living wage and has a full-time job of at least 30 to 40 hours a week, which should be counted as a full time and eligible for benefits. Workers who have to work two or three jobs just to survive does not a life make. One must keep in mind that a minimum wage raise to $15 to $18 an hour will mean nothing if there is no union or way to fight for hours for even at 30 hours at $15 an hour is only $450 weekly gross. Employers cut hours, creating “McJobs,” but they keep hiring new workers—why? The answer is they are giving themselves a larger part–time pool, who are trained this way and if the wage slaves try to unionize employers think they will have union busters on hand. Also, the flexibility, which started about twenty years ago still works somewhat for white-collar workers, but is curse for blue-collar workers without a union because now the employers own the workers 2...

Will California be the next Wisconsin? Will all labor unions be gutted by ‘right to work’ for less laws? Well, this could very well happen for the members of some of the largest unions who are voting Republican, which by name are anti-union and supporting the anti-union candidates just because now it is not popular to belong to a union, and the Right has hijacked the hunting and fishing or owning guns. Postal workers have lost already when they supported Congressman Darrel Issa, who then pulled a Reagan and went after the Postal workers unions and began closing down post offices. Then there are the California Forestry and Fire Prevention (Cal Fire), who have a very good union with excellent benefits and again, a lot of their members are afraid to say they are union members and if they vote for Democrats or liberal candidate, but most vote Republican. The numbers of people in unions or receiving union pensions watch Fox (non-news) and believe the crap it spews about unions or their lea...

If you want to see a true example of apathy, look at a typical postal worker. The USPS eliminated 37,000 jobs last year and will keep eliminating jobs. In any other sector of the labor force, an elimination of this kind is done under the guise of saving money by downsizing and privatization. Keep in mind, the real reason is to break the largest existing union, which will lessen money for the anti-GOP fight. Also, look at where the GOP wants to put USPS wants to put offices—in private mini-post offices within non-union Staples stores. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Staples in floundering. The company initially had 2,000 stores in 26 countries, and now Staples is closing 60 more stores worldwide this year, 15 in the U.S. and 45 in Europe, in an attempt to save 250 stores. Staples’ pays $8.25 an hour versus the $25 an hour for union postal workers. So how will taking away $25 an hour pay from 37,000 workers going to help the economy? Again, this attempt to move the USPS into Stapl...

It is time for the 1 percent oligarchies to start paying back for the use of “our” commons. They are getting a free ride. They exploit our national resources, our clean air and water, they use our roads, airspace, radios, television, and our armed forces protect their interests abroad. Our commons belong to all 100 percent of us, but the 1 percent uses it the most and the 99 percent have to pay for the upkeep through our taxes, which the 1 percent has loop holes to avoid paying their fair share. There needs to be a tax on the use of our commons that is fair. At this time the oligarchies get a free ride. We give them young, healthy, educated workers, who are the 99 percent have paid to educate and healthcare to keep them healthy and they try to pay them the lowest wages with no benefits possible. A recent job advertisement listed a master’s degree was required, but the starting pay was only $34,000 a year, not enough to live on and pay back student loans. This means we are subsidizing ...

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...

We need today a Congress like the one we had in 1935, which was a worker-type of Congress that guaranteed the rights of workers to form unions. Their rational for setting forth the National Labor Relations Board Act was that inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association … and employers. The money people who are organized in corporate or other forms of ownership association tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and this is the same today. The workers have shown productivity gains for the last 30-40 years and yet the wages have dropped and the money gains have gone to the 1%. Today what workers’ rights we still have are now in extreme jeopardy by restricting most of what the 1935 Congress set forth: (1) by restricting the rights of workers to learn about unions; (2) the right of workers to organize and choose union representation; (3) the right of...