Union Perspectives

Elections come and go, but nothing changes, and the masses continue to take it in the shorts. Our Democratic president just negotiated a deal with Israel to give that country $38 billion in military aid to “protect” themselves from the carnage they stir up against the Palestinians, stealing the Palestinians land and killing them, and then acting outraged when they fight back. Those billions could help our students with their educational debts, or pay for single-payer healthcare, or rebuild our infrastructure. Then consider these endless wars, which will not end. Why? Because it’s big money to be made in killing people. The costs in lives seems to be ignored by our government, both parties benefit from payoffs and have done nothing to resolve or end the wars. Both parties are at fault so nothing will change with the 2016 election. We are being forced to choose between two lousy candidates. The corporate media pays its part in not reporting on this or any other relevant topic. In the 2...

President Obama has sold out unions’ pensions when he signed a must pass omnibus bill, which has the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. The bill strikes down an enshrined American ideal that money earned for a pension can’t be pulled out from under our feet like a rug once we retire. That promise, once codified in law, was upended by the passage of this reform act. This act will effect some 400,000 participants by cutting benefits for some retirees now, some up to 60 percent. This is the central state pension funds, which is predicted to be insolvent in 10 years and this fund is the canary in the mineshaft as similar multiemployer pension funds are now at risk. If these funds go bust, mortgages won’t be paid, prescriptions won’t be filled, utility bills and groceries will be a regular hardship. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell hates unions so there will be no hope there, and Hillary Clinton is no fan of unions either. This just leaves Bernie Sanders and no one is ...

Extra money for low to moderate income families for use of our Commons was almost realty until the lobbyists swarmed Capitol Hill like locust on crops. This rent for our Commons was about to be voted upon as recently as 2009 with President Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House—and then the legislative process began …. California Congressman Henry Waxman joined with then Massachusetts’ Congressman Ed Markey, who is now a senator, to draft a climate bill and get it passed. Both congressmen are long-time environmentalists. In 2008, Markey introduced a carbon-capping bill that would have auctioned off 94 percent of the permits and the money made would be divided between low and moderate income families. Markey declared at the time the atmosphere—the air we breathe—is a sacred public trust that belongs to all of us. It is one of our Commons. Its use shouldn’t be used to enrich corporate polluters at citizens’ expense. One year later all that Markey...

It’s time for payback. Now is the time for President Obama to repay the wage slaves for the money and support given to him when he ran for election and re-election. All the unions were asking was just the tools to work with, such as card check. For the federal contract workers at the U.S. Capital and other high profile locations in Washington, like the parks, museum and zoo workers, have the right to fight for collective bargaining rights and to obtain higher wages. President Obama should use his executive power for a higher minimum wage than $10.10 an hour, more like $15 to $18 an hour. Also, the President should change the classification of Federal employees who fight wildland fire to wildland firefighters with the pay that is fitting, such as California Department of Forestry firefighters receive. Then the President should make good on his promise to the people who have come here for work or a better, safer life, and quit deporting them and splitting up their families. These people...

The Democrats and the President need to step up to the plate and back the workers and unions in this class warfare. If Democrats can’t arrest the downward spiral of America’s economical lives of the 99 percent, maybe a new party is needed. The workers’ need is more than the minimum wage increase of $15 to $18 an hour. We need to restore workers’ collective bargaining in pay, benefits and hours. To do this we need stronger labor laws that protect us, the workers, and plug the holes in the existing laws that have been decimated in the last 40 years. The government should also re-establish the link between economic growth and Americans’ incomes. There is a way to tie economic growth to wages, which would be a shared prosperity for all. It’s been done before. We need a strong labor leader like President Franklin Roosevelt. When he was at Madison Square Garden; he singled out business and financial monopoly speculation and reckless banking as enemies of a social peace. Government by organiz...

The war for $15 to $16 is on and a new enemy has surfaced. In the Art of War, you are to know your enemy. The wage warrior who will be leading the fight to kill any wage increase for the low wage workers is Richard Berman, who works for the restaurant industry. Berman runs a public relations firm. The 71-year-old Berman is a skilled spin master believes that workers are not paid for what they need, but for what they can contribute, which sounds logical until you use logic. What workers can contribute means a lot of different things, such as making who they work for a lot of money. If that is so then the workers should have a piece of that pie. Berman will push that higher wages will make jobs disappear, which is just bullpucky. It will create more jobs for when people have more money to buy products; someone has to make the products being bought or serve the customer at restaurants, which is where Berman will try to scare the workers into believing that new technologies will be used t...

President Obama wants close the gap between the rich and poor, but wage slaves must be aware of the consequences of the slow walk in higher wages. If the wages stop increasing before $15 to $16 an hour all it will accomplish is that wage slaves will be making just enough money to disqualify them and their families from food stamps or other government assistance, which ends up being no help at all. It will only help the government and make the anti-worker GOP happy. The GOP will have you believe that low wage workers are lazy and do not want anything more out of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have poor because we have politicians who make bad decisions impacting the poor even more, such as daycare, Head Start or after school programs. Many head of households are single parents, most often women, and can’t afford the basic needs let alone daycare, so how are they supposed to get ahead if they can’t even make it to the starting line? What the workers must have is wages ...

How do 85 people in the world control the same amount of the wealth as one half of the world’s population or 3.5 billion people? Another way to look at this is each of the 85 richest people has access to the same resources as do 42 million of the world’s “have nots” and last year 210 people joined the ranks of billionaires. So at this time the wealth of the 1 percent is $110 trillion. Now, how do the 99 percent pry away some of this money? One way is to make the oligarchies pay a living wage of at least $15 to $16 an hour and, yes, there is a huge inequality between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, and the old worn out playbook of the GOP anti-union plays will not hold water any more. You know the old sayings like, “pull yourself up by your own boot straps.” I would like to see someone do this. I think it is literally and physically impossible to do. Another ignorant position is only young wage slaves just starting their work experience are the workers at fast food, low wage jobs. Th...

Why doesn’t President Obama have a labor secretary like Frances Perkins in his Cabinet? Perkins was the first female Cabinet member under President Franklin Roosevelt, and there has never been a better labor secretary since. If the Obama administration does not start working for labor, then why will labor work for them, the Democrats, then why should labor spend its money on federal elections? At this time the trend seems to be spending and working on carpeting the state legislation and government offices. This is working well for the GOP, and the labor people are seeing the results, which is detrimental to union labor. By working the states it can be more grassroots, which can more easily show our dues paying members results in their towns where the jobs are and could result in more union jobs and dues paying members. With this success then it could be transferred to the federal level of government. Frances Perkins understood what the working wage slaves needed, which was federal lab...

Why and when did the GOP become so anti-worker? The Chamber of Commerce, which is GOP dominated and a few unknowing Democrats, has always been against workers having a living wage. At one time there were a few GOP elected presidents that were for wage slaves, healthcare, workers safety laws, environmental laws, and the right for workers to have unions. This was when they, the corporate-run GOP, needed our workers and at that time they just wanted to keep unemployment at a 6 percent or higher unemployment. The reason for the 6 percent and higher was when unemployment reaches 5 percent or lower then the workers would be in a better position to fight for better working conditions, such as pay, pensions, healthcare, work place safety. But now with NAFTA, outsourcing jobs overseas, the corporations don’t care about the unemployment percentage. The GOP politicians don’t care and have no intention to help working class people. Now the large U.S. corporations have traded away their loyalty fr...