Union Perspectives

Why should the top 1 percent get their income from no labor and everyone else should toil like wage slaves to hopefully make ends meet? Capitalism creates two kinds of income. One is derived from physical or mental labor; the other is from ownership of property rights. At this time the what’s left of the middle class gets nearly all of it’s income from labor. Counting Social Security and pensions as deferred wages and salaries. The top 1 percent gets their income from capital gains, dividends and property income, which is also taxed at lower rates than labor income. So to even this up, there should be a way for the wage slaves to reap some non-labor income to offset the inequality of labor and wages. This should be a birth right for everyone. Everyone should get dividends from charging rent for our Commons, by those profiting off our ecosystems, sciences, technologies, legal system, roads, oil reserves, minerals, and more. These Commons are co-owned by everyone at birth, and paid o...

Labor here in the U.S. and worldwide should take a look or revisit what Sweden and Norway did to beat the 1 percent, the oligarchies who had held the country’s people in horrendous poverty. It was so bad that many thousands of people fled to other countries to avoid starvation. The Norwegian workers knew that change was needed, but the 1 percent had a death grip on the electric democracy and stacked it against the proletarians. The proletarians tried nonviolence actions to bring about the power change, but in both countries the troops were called in to defend the 1 percent’s riches and power, and the workers were killed in the nationwide general strike. The Norwegian workers and unions did not give up and they still wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent means by establishing co-ops and using electoral arena. The fight was on and workers led strikes in 1921-1923-1924. The employers, backed by the state, beat back the strikers with 100,000 armed people to protect ...

The Bernie Sanders supporters must be ready for the long-haul fight. Just electing Bernie is just the start, the beginning of the revolution. A true revolution carries the mission until complete change is carried out and taken hold, which means we will have to elect a true Democratic Congress and Senate. Not only do we need to rid the Congress and the Senate of Republican politicians, but also Blue Dog, centrist, and corporate-beholden Democrats, if we want to see the change needed. When we clean house, then we can see real change with free education. Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Slovenia, Chile and Brazil all have free college education and the main reason is that their governments aren’t controlled by corporations and the stock market. When your politicians aren’t beholden to corporations, it’s amazing what can be accomplished. Those who say increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour would cost jobs; you have to ask why would these people say such a thing. When you pull...

One of the best solutions to inequality here in the U.S. and the world would be for everyone to have one share of the Commons, the wealth made from using what belongs to all of us our natural resources: air, water, gas and oil, among others. This is not a new thought nor is it welfare. Thomas Paine, 1737-1809, wrote that every individual is born with legitimate claims on natural property or its equivalent. A modern day exchange between two very conservative GOP Fox news commentators, Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs, found that they agree with the concept of dividends for Commons. O’Reilly said, “It’s my contention that we, the people, own the gas and oil discovered in America. It’s our land and the government administers it in our name … land and water are the domain of we, the people.” Dobbs said, “The oil that we’re talking about belongs to us as you said … In Alaska, there is a perfect model for what we should do as a nation. We should have—let’s call it the American Trust. Have the oi...

Working people should look very long and hard when there is talk of splitting a state or country or when they are thinking of a coup or changing a country’s leaders. First, follow the money to find why and who is it—a corporation behind it. Is another country behind it? Is it an old or new political party behind it? Then what are the benefits to the wage slave? Will it be a better life, more food, better healthcare, job safety, voting rights, better education, more job selections, and if none or all of these are not on the plus side then we might start asking questions before supporting a candidate, political party or ballot measures. The workers might end up in a religious controlled country or state with an unbearable life or in a civil war like Syria or Iraq or Libya or some other country like Somalia. Even here in the U.S. there is a faction that wants to split California into two states, one of which would be called the State of Jefferson. There is a symbol they use, XX, which a...

Is it time to rethink our union? At this time union cannot support each other on strikes. In a lot of union companies with many different unions within them with most of these different unions expiring at different time, which means they cannot support each other in a strike because they would be breaching their contract and opening themselves up to being sued. In some cases they are held responsible for lost profits, court costs and other possible damages. The other thing is most unions with apprenticeship trainings are so good that a union worker can leave the union and become a foreman or start their own nonunion business. Some have even stolen tools to start their businesses. This is prevalent in all construction trades and it usually happens when we, unions, cannot keep our workers employed and when we can’t is when they, the nonunion, take over our training and use it against us. It's pretty pathetic when the U.S. ranks 21st out of 21 countries for union membership and cove...