Union Perspectives

In this election, labor needs to get it right on whom to support. Labor supported Bill Clinton, whose chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel. Clinton opened the flood gates for union jobs to be shipped out of the country with the passage of North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA, and Emanuel, who is mayor of Chicago, is still union bashing. He would be back if Hillary Clinton is elected. Look at what labor spent on President Obama’s election in hopes of getting the Employee Free Choice Act, which went nowhere. It was shoved aside for healthcare. Clinton’s NAFTA is now about to get Obama’s version in the form of Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP, which is NAFTA on steroids, labor says. Labor needs people elected who will support labor’s fight for $15, free education, sick leave, family leave, single payer healthcare, the right to form a union, climate change, Black Lives Matter, immigration reform, lifestyle and income inequality and payment for Corporate use of our Commons. In order for ...

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 ...

Why can’t the Democrats have a Tea Party-like movement like the GOP—this movement would be the proletariats and wage slaves and normal, intelligent people who will fight for higher wages, fight against inequality of the lower 47 percent. Yes, it would be nice if there was a strong labor party and maybe there will or could be one day, but in the meantime why not use the tools that are there, which is the brand name Democrats/progressive and the brand name is about all you would get for you would not get much money from corporations or even the Democratic Party. So it would be funded by the wage slaves and some smart forward thinking unions or maybe even new unions. Yes, it would be much easier to just go with a socialist party, but to do that and win there would have to be a lot of education on what socialism actually is and what it isn’t—communism. At this time I think there could be a parallel program, which would support each other and benefit the Democratic Party and the 47 percent....

The best chance for wage slaves to prevail in their fight for higher wages can be found in the tireless work of two women: Kshama Sawant in Seattle, WA, and Marilule Wili in Switzerland. Sawant is a Seattle city council member and Wili is a waitress and musician and a member of the organization, Generation Basic Income, an activist group trying to persuade voters to amend Switzerland’s Constitution to guarantee every citizen a yearly income of $33,000 a year whether they work or not. They have gotten the necessary 100,000 signatures to place the initiative on the ballot to put it before the country’s voters. The vote will be in two or three years. Philosophically, the idea of equality has a long history drawing support from the likes of the English/American revolutionary Thomas Paine and economist Milton Friedman. The best minimum wages are in Denmark, which gives its poorest citizens $1,800 a month; enough to keep their citizens out of poverty. This all can be financially feasible by...