Union Perspectives

Could Trump, if elected, be like President Woodrow Wilson? During his administration, President Wilson unleashed a reign of terror on the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Socialist Party of America. He imposed martial law on the mining towns of Montana and Arizona, suppressed the press, sent federal troops to enforce corporate rule in logging camps. He encouraged the American Protective League vigilantes to hunt down draft dodgers, burn down what they considered radical bookstores and even lynching radical immigrants. Think Brown Shirts or our own Silver Shirts. President Wilson also invaded Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Also, a little known fact, he sent two large expeditionary forces to aid the White movement and its military arm the White Army (also known as the White Guard or the Whites were a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces) who fought the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. While doing all of this, Wilson refused to lift ...

Nonunion employers’ feel they own their wage slaves and today it is the same as it was in the 1800s when the boss lined up the wage slaves and marched them to the polling places to cast their vote and told the employees who to vote for. If they did not vote the way the employers dictated they would be fired. Another insult that wage slaves were not paid for that day. Here it is, the 2012 election, and the employers are using this same tactic: coal miners marched out and made to stand behind a GOP presidential candidate and told to donate to the candidate’s campaign and weren’t paid for the time they had to stand behind that candidate. Companies are many who force their workers to do what they want even when the wage slaves are on their own time. The employers tell or have the slaves sign contracts that dictate what the employee can say or write on social network sites or letters to newspapers, agreeing not to join a union or dropping out of a union in order to get a job with a compan...