Union Perspectives

The oligarchs require a government with tremendous power of law enforcement to control the anger of the people. More GOP controlled state legislatures are working to suppress local progressive victories, such as living wage ordinances, filling private prisons with poor or undocumented people. They are engineering retirement crisis by moving workers to inadequate 401Ks. The GOP is once again taking away rights of consumers and workers to bring grievances to court by making workers sign forced arbitration agreements. They are gutting the public education system to keep people ignorant because they’re more likely to vote for GOP lies. The GOP will even refuse children clean water as they’ve been doing in Flint, Michigan for going on five years now. James Buchanan says people who failed to foresee and save money for their future needs are to be treated as subordinate members if the species akin to animals who are dependent on others. He says this without factoring in the wage discrepancy...

The idea that workers had rights in their workplaces equal to or exceeded the rights of management motivated union activity during the 1930s. According to historian Sidney Fine, during the sit-down strike at Flint, Michigan, in 1937, the United Auto Workers contended that the strike was legal because the workers enjoyed a property right in his/her job; and in striking, was therefore protecting his private property—his/her right to a job. The property right of the workers in their job, it was alleged, was superior to the right of the company to use its property as it saw fit since the workers had invested their lives in the company/plant only invested their money. Remember, it is labor that creates wealth and jobs. Money can do nothing without humans and this is where the power and this is where the power is found. Just look at the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution known as the Glorious Labor Amendment, which gives workers the right to strike to improve wages, working conditions,...