Union Perspectives

On a night in February 1933, Frances Perkins sat in front of the newly elected 32nd president of the United States as he told her that he wanted her to be the new Secretary of Labor. Perkins told President Franklin Roosevelt she would take the job if she could do it her way. Perkins wanted: a 40-hour work week, minimum wage, work compensation, unemployment compensation, a federal law banning child labor, direct federal aid for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized public employment service, and health insurance. The opposition to Perkins demands came from courts, businesses, labor unions--yes, labor unions, conservatives, and the chamber of commerce. Even with all this opposition against Perkins, a lot was accomplished. Today, we are trying to protect our Social Security, which we pay into, and even to expand it. We also want to go back to providing free college, like we used to have before politicians, like California Governor Ronald Reagan, redirected the money for f...

Senator Bernie Sanders will be our next president and we need to start planning now for how we will get single-payer healthcare, $15 an hour minimum wage, free college, immigration reform and taking on the banks and Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, prison/justice reform, and reduce the military industrial complex by making the Middle East deal with their problems instead of relying completely on the U.S. These are just some of the things that need to be done. Also, we, union workers-retired or still working, must ensure that Sanders doesn’t forget us and will push for card check, which President Obama promised and then sold us out. In his campaign platform, Sanders also states, aside from the above items, but also passage of the Work Place Democracy Act to strengthen the role of unions, he leads the fight for $15 and a union for fast food workers and federal contract employees, and supports the Employee Free Choice Act or card check, and equal pay for women. With all of this to do,...

Could the USA’s corporate capitalist system survive without wars? Probably not and terrorism is good for business. Terrorism will most likely never be defeated because it keeps profits high for the military industrial complex. The Paris attacks occurred on a Friday, when the Stock Market opened on Monday defense industry stocks, like Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop, Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Booz Allen Hamilton soared in anticipation of the coming weapons sales and security contracts. There will never be an elected person who wants to stabilize the world and have no wars or unrest. They will not get corporate backing for their elections if they went against these corporate giants. Since 9/11, five countries have disintegrated as nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The destruction of these countries were the result of direct American interventions. The fifth, Syria, came from a flood of U.S. arms to the so-called moderate rebels. The forth, Yemen, ...

Are the workers and countries of the world returning to tribal governments of the old days where countries were made up of family tribes and religions? Just look at places like the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan all are reverting to the past like Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Turkey and the list goes on. Are the large countries starting to fade? Are they getting too large to defend or control? Are governments too polarized to govern? Has the 1 percent billionaires of the world gained control and only want more money and power over the workers? And if this is the case it could be the tipping point for the loss of a civilized world and the beginning of a world filled with ISIS types who just hate and kill for their ideology. When money and power is worshipped over the good of people, there will be a revolt and will it be peaceful or a bloodletting? The days of large countries dominating small countries are over. Just how long can the U.S. hang onto our satellite countrie...

Fifty-five years ago President Johnson declared his war on poverty. At this time there are 47 million Americans living beneath the poverty level. Does that number sound familiar, think Mitt Romney and his infamous talk with some of the 1 percent during his failed campaign for president. Billionaire Warren Buffet said there is a class warfare all right, but it’s my class that is winning. He is calling for higher taxes on the rich and the money to be spent on our crumbling infrastructure, free education, and higher wages. The tax on the rich under Johnson was 91 percent. It is now 39.6 percent for those who pay, but most of the rich pay nothing, in fact. There are many corporations that the poor end up paying for their subsidies and who do you think makes up the difference in these tax rate that is less than half of what it used to be? We also voted in GOP people who retooled our war on poverty to a cynical war on crime and privatized a lot of our prisons. The term criminal came to mean...

Why is there so much unrest and fighting in the world? Is it just a coincidence that most of the impact is on the toilers? And who or what is to blame? It is not the wage slaves for they are just barely getting by and in some cases being savaged by raped, killed or sold into slavery. It is not only the Middle East or South America or Ukraine, it is everywhere. So what are the commonalities? Oil, gas, precious metals and gems, water and among resources, which then equals money and power. If the governments do not respect the ownership of the commons or its people power than the oligarchies will buy some of us, give guns and take what they want, which is all of it. There is never enough for these greedy people, and once the 1/10 of the 1 percent of the billionaires beat the toilers. They will turn on each other, but we, the workers, will be the ones who are forced to do the fighting and killing while they sit back and watch like a sporting event. We already see this sporting event in t...

The leaderless world revolution and the armies are all around us just waiting for a trigger or tipping point to march and they are all leaders so how are they controlled? It looks, to me, like they have taken a look at history and have written a play book that has taken old tactics that worked and came up with new ones and with that they have added and use our new technology. What we are seeing is it is very hard to kill the snake when you cannot find its head. Brazil is a good example of a tipping point, upping the cost of public transportation that millions of low wage workers would have to pay and then humiliating one person by pepper spraying her in the face for no reason other than they think they can and get away with it. I wonder what the cops were thinking when they were pushed into the ocean up to their waists—power to the people. This is just the start of the Have All against the Have Some and Have Nots. For us, wage slaves, have a right to have a say and a right to an equa...