Union Perspectives

The only power the working class has is the power to produce wealth—for someone else. The unions’ purpose is to organize the workers to control the use of their labor so that they will be able to stop the production of wealth except upon terms dictated by the workers themselves. This can be done by just putting their hands in their pockets until their terms are met. It looks like the workers are now seeing that they can have unions and even workers at the big corporations, who pay low wages like Starbucks and Amazon. And the more wins there are the more will come for it’s not uncommon for people to want to be on the winning side. So, who will be next? Will it be Walmart, McDonald’s, or Tesla? There will never be a better time for workers in our life time to make gains for workers. The stars have aligned in the workers favor and we can credit the pandemic, which showed the weaknesses that company owners actually have; and in all adversity there can be opportunities to take advantage of,...

How do the money people get very, very rich off the backs of the poorest Have Nots? Well, one reason is labor laws or the lack of labor laws in any case, the government is involved, which usually means highly paid lobbyists work for the very rich and against the poor. These are the lobbyists who fight against the $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage—the restaurant workers’ pay, farm workers’ pay and overtime, and home health aide workers. Most of the wage slaves do not even earn federal minimum wage, but the people who have moved into the International Franchise Association (IFA) are getting very rich off the back of these workers—as usual. Whenever there is a push back against the $15 to $18 an hour, it’s usually the IFA there helping the likes of McDonalds, or suing the federal government to keep home health aides from earning a minimum wage and overtime. According to an August 2014 study in the Journal of Health Affairs, 62 percent of the home health care industry now consists of for pr...

The $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage fight is winning with support of the United Healthcare workers #1199 SEIU. This can be effective by targeting the international corporations that pays low wages, such as McDonalds, Walmart, and clothing factories that supply U.S. stores and colleges. There are now hundreds of people and groups across the U.S. and worldwide who are speaking out for the world’s toilers. The wage slaves are showing the low-wage unsafe corporations there is no place to hide. All toilers are demanding what is their civil rights, which is a safe place to work, a living wage, dignity, vacation pay, pensions, healthcare, and a free education to the bachelor’s level, and if the world’s wage slaves can get this then maybe they can get safe drinking water, safe food, toilets, clean air—the things that make life bearable and can give hope that their children will have a better life than the present wage slaves. We, toilers, must understand it is up to us to stop the wars and t...

Stand with Walmart workers this BLACK FRIDAY! All across the country the UFCW and Walmart employees are scheduling Black Friday protests to bring attention to the unfair and inhumane treatment Walmart workers receive from this company. Walmart rakes in more than $16 billion in annual profits yet the most of its workers earn less than $25,000 a year, forcing them to either work more jobs or to receive government assistance. The dream of a national strike or protest about wages and workers’ rights, like France and other countries do, has always been thought of as impossible here in the U.S. Now with large mass corporations like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King, which are all across the U.S., it’s now feasible to have a national protests on the Black Friday. So far this year at least 27 Walmarts across the U.S. are scheduled to have Black Friday protests and we can only hope there will be more at other corporations that are exposed for paying slave wag...

Old International Workers of the World’s (IWW) dream of a worldwide workers fight for economic justice is coming. This has got to feel very good for the old IWW’s Wobblies and it is showing respect for the martyrs who gave their lives or did prison time on mostly trumped up charges. All workers and retired people need to stand up and support the $15 an hour wage or a living wage, which some, like California Rep. Barbara Lee (D) say should be in the $26 an hour range, which is where it would be today if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation. The proletarians worldwide have awakened to the fact that no government is going to help them, they’re on their own. Just like always. It is the families and fellow workers who help you. Remember when you have nothing you don’t have much to lose and this is where the oligarchies have made a strategic mistake. You never force your enemy into a corner (Art of War) and left them with no alternatives, but to fight. Also remember if you are afraid...

There is hope for the wage slaves and it is coming from the low-wage workers, who have very little. These are the people who will raise the ship of wages and produce jobs. For they will force the oligarchies and corporations, who are sitting on trillions of dollars either in the U.S. or in offshore bank accounts to pay their workers a living wage. These greedy elitists should be made to stop receiving corporate welfare, which is when the 99 percent pays taxes to support their en slavers while workers are trying to live on minimum wage or part-time work. The workers must be supplemented by at least by at least $8 to $10 per hour just to survive so when we (not me) shop at Walmart and think we are getting a good deal on something made in China you’re not. For you are helping Walmart pay its workers through your taxes, which could be used for something benefitting our country and not billionaires because the states, counties and cities have to make up the difference of low wages in food ...

The strike or temporary walkout: why workers fear doing it and how to alleviate their fear. One way to picket a fast food or any low wage place is to recruit people from like-minded businesses. This way it is hard for owners to retaliate against workers asking for a $15 an hour minimum wage. So, workers at Burger King can picket a McDonald, and then the workers of McDonalds picket at Burger King. Another thing is to find out what other organizations would support increasing minimum wage to a $15 an hour and trade off might be just the exposure of their membership, such as faith-based work centers. You can leverage your manpower to help each other to see that there is no retaliation. This is not a new strategy. These are time-tested tactics used by the Knights of Labor in the 1880 and the International Workers of the World. The tactics were used to gain freedom of assembly and speech. These tactics will get around the outlawing of solidarity of workers that the National Labor Relations...

Labor is not the enemy. They are the customers. Why do us wage slaves give our hard earned money to people who use it against us. And, yes, we are wage slaves for anyone who drags their tired body up every day to earn wages. The GOP will tell you the U.S. is the land of opportunity; and that is true to a certain extent. Not everyone is born equal or from the same circumstance, and no one makes wealth on their own because they need employees to help them get there and we turn around and buy what they are selling. So, in this capitalist system we are wage slaves. If we don’t do this we will not eat or have shelter or be able to send our kids to school—you know, like take care of your family. Why do we give away our hard earned cash to corporations like Wendys, McDonalds, Mars Inc. (candy), Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Intuit (website creator) and the Gates Foundation (Microsoft), who were all long-time members of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC. The organization b...