Union Perspectives

The Democratic Party lost from the top down. The Party is decimated and everyone who was a part of the Party’s demise should be fired or replaced. Labor should now understand that no one person or party is going to ride in on a white horse and make them whole again. Labor will have to do it themselves with good, strong leadership that comes from the ranks and is supported by the workers not just because it is their turn to get the job. Labor must now start to educate the workers on the good of unions. They must organize, organize, organize, and rebuild their membership, but in order to have jobs for the workers. Unions must work to get Project Labor Agreement on school boards, city and all prevailing wage jobs for any work with government money, which falls under the Davis-Bacon Act. This means that there must be union advocates at the meetings when jobs are put out to bid. If the rules are followed, there is no reason that union shops should not get the work. It just takes work fro...

The Democratic Party can hand the election for president to Donald Trump by not including Bernie Sanders’ platform on its final platform at this year’s convention. Instead, the Democratic committee drafting the platform has rejected Sanders’ proposals. Proposals that would help the majority of Americans and other countries whether they are retired, young or working. The committee has excluded or watered down issues, such as raising the minimum wage, single-payer healthcare, and refusing to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fracking, and addressing the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. They voted against or neutered an amendment to protect pensions, against a carbon tax, against preventing energy companies from using eminent domain for fossil fuel extractions, against making climate change a test for the Keystone Pipelines, against an amendment to add language eliminating use of force in the Syrian conflict, among other concerns that effect the majority of people. The committee instead ...

It is past time to shut off the money tap to the Democratic National Committee and also bring in our foot soldiers for the people we are helping to elect are giving us nothing in return. In fact, they are supporting the antiunion people by just doing nothing while our rights are expiring. You hear nothing about the loss of our National Labor Relations Board. The Democrats are now calling themselves “Centrists” (Blue Dogs) and as they chase the GOP, the GOP moves further to the extreme right then our Democrats move more toward the center right. Now is the time to draw a new line and it needs to be brought back to the early ‘90s at least and restore all the rights that we wage slaves have lost since then. We cannot keep throwing our money and manpower into the blackhole that we are digging. We must stop digging and start over with new or old tactics that have worked or will work. Our membership is falling fast and with that money in which to support us and fight. This money must be spen...