Union Perspectives

Where have all the jobs that pay a living wage gone? We know that greed has sent a lot of jobs to countries that accept cheap wages for their workers and to the non-union southern states. Now we are seeing robots changing the employment landscape and eliminating jobs in factories. Even with all this, there were still the brick and mortar jobs selling the cheaply made products from overseas. Now these jobs are going by the wayside with Amazon and Walmart companies investing in E-commerce. This has started a retail apocalypse on thousands of mall-based stores shutting down. JC Penney’s 138 stores, Sears 150 stores, Kmart 3,500 stores. Then the Kroger company, the largest grocery store chain, sales plummeted 25 percent erasing more than $7 billion in value. These jobs will go to $7.25 an hour minimum wage and workers will be hired by Amazon for warehouse jobs. These jobs are in a cutthroat competition and is based on keeping out unions at all costs. What these workers at Walmart and Ama...

April 15 is the big one! This rally will be worldwide for the fight for $15 an hour minimum wage. This fight is for not only fast food workers, but for all low-wage workers, such as adjunct professors at colleges, who are now part-time and non-tenured with no pensions, home healthcare workers, airport workers, childcare workers, Walmart-Target-Kmart-Home Depot, workers, car wash workers, auto lube workers and the list goes on. Corporations have decimated the pay of workers by demeaning the jobs as only unskilled or uneducated or student work jobs as if that had anything to do with the work being done. There will be actions on 170 college campuses, as well as cities around the U.S. and abroad. There will be around 2,000 groups, including Jobs with Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy will show their support, as well. This will be the largest mobilization America has ever seen in decades. This push is being headed and supported by the Service Employees International Union. This ...

In the1920s, the corporations representing capital (money) mobilized for war of the extermination on all labor organizations in the United States, and they never stopped. They have just changed tactics and leaders overtime. Today, the one who is leading this charge is back by the Koch brothers is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who recently signed the right to work legislation into law. This means workers in a union do not have to pay union dues, but still get the same union benefits as dues paying workers. How the hell does this work? When they take away union funds it is like tying one hand behind your back, and then trying to fight a two-handed bully. The anti-union money people have never given up on breaking unions or breaking up the New Deal. The other tactic union busters use is the old divide and conquer—pitting working people against working people so they will tear down their neighbors, who are lucky enough to have union jobs—and this seems to be working. Labor was warned ...