Union Perspectives

If we can get union people elected to political office, we will expect them to work on getting rid of the Taft-Hartly Act, which John L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers, said this is the first ugly savage thrust of fascism in America. The Taft-Hartley Act, also known as the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, limited the power of labor unions in the United States. The act was passed by Congress over President Harry S. Truman's veto. Quick run down on this Act. Its main purpose was to weaken unions’ influence, which had grown during the Depression and World War II, and to create a more favorable legal environment for businesses and industry. The Act outlawed closed shops, jurisdictional strikes, and secondary boycotts. It restricted union political contributions and health and welfare funds. It required union officials to file non-communist affidavits. It allowed states to enact "right-to-work" laws. It defined unfair labor practices. It protected employees from uni...

One way union leaders are failing their members is that the leaders don’t know who their members are. To stop union busters, one must first understand union workers or even non-union workers’ view of unions. It is imperative that union leaders first understand the factors that influence a worker’s view regarding unions, which include the worker’s family background, including their parents’ occupation and any experience that their parents or other close relatives have had with unions, which may affect the attitude of a young or frustrated worker. How do you know what the worker is thinking if you don’t know who the members are and you speak with them? As a union rep, you should know the workers’ employment experiences, their pay and working conditions, their treatment by supervisors, the degree of security they feel, their advancement opportunities or failures for advancement because these can all profoundly influence how a worker perceives their employer and their reaction to unions....

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...

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...

Things are starting to look up for wage slaves. The economy is slowly recovering. Manufacturing is starting to return to the USA. Construction is starting to build again and most of all the workers are starting to understand how to organize themselves for workers’ rights and not just here, but all over the world. Soon there will not be a country where the anti-union companies can threaten workers with moving their factories to and this is evidenced by the companies that are returning to the USA. So 2013 could be the tipping point for the workers. Hell, we have already won the people’s election of our president, which showed the power of people over moneyed people so what’s to stop us from getting good wages and benefits from the Walmarts of this world. The fact is there is nothing to stop us except fear, apathy, and ignorance of how it was done before, and what worked and what did not and for this knowledge we can use the secret weapon, which are our labor histories. Everything we ...

Our union messages have already been written. All we need to do is put them on the television, radio and in print. One message we need for California union workers was written by UAW past president Walter Reuther: There’s a direct relationship between the breadbox and the ballot box and what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls and our members need to understand this or we will lose this in the fall election. The second union message was written by a union leader past president of the AFL, Samuel Gompers, was titled “What Does Labor Want?” "We want more schools, houses, and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less greed, more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright." The third message comes from President Franklin Roosevelt on wages. He wrote in 1933 ...