Union Perspectives

The net worth of the top 1 percent is $41.52 trillion while the net worth of the bottom 50 percent is $2.62 trillion. This is a good reason for a universal basic income (UBI) of $2,000 a month for all 18 years and older. Consider that the Walmart chain still costs the taxpayers $904,000 a year in entitlement benefits, such as food stamps and medical coverage. Universities abolished tenure and now pay adjunct professors below poverty wages. The universities hold food drives for the workers it is underpaying. Professor Margaret Mary Vojtko, battling ovarian cancer, worked for 25 years as an adjunct and died in abject poverty on wages of less than $10,000 a year. Just look at the explosion in the payday lenders and pawn shops. Corporations do not hire, they just use non-paying internships. Ours is an economy of survival, and at this time the people, when presented with options, will chose food over violence, but for how much longer? The way to pay for the UBI is by charging rent for all o

Time to look at what a $3,000 a month universal basic income (UBI) would do. People would still work, maybe go back to school to improve upon their skills, which would make them a better employee, or maybe some would even start their own business. Some would even take a vacation and spend money to supporting the local economy, spend time with their families or volunteer as a firefighter-first responder, kids sports like Little League or Pop Warner teams, or get involved in local politics, like school or water or fire boards. These are just a few of the things people could do if they had a little extra cash from a UBI. At this time, we have 41 million Americans living below the poverty level. This would end poverty and poverty wages. Wages would go up because people would be spending more, which would mean more jobs to replace the products bought. The UBI idea is not new. The concept was started in England’s Tudor period (1485-1603) basically that every person was to receive a guara

Now that the $15 an hour minimum wage has legs, we should start the fight for how people have little chance to find a lucrative job that will last their entire working life and end with a pension and healthcare. The manufacturing jobs are either relocated to another country or just about to be eliminated by machines or robots. Retail is going by the wayside as the brick and mortar stores are replaced by online shopping. What’s left are tech jobs, service jobs, and the best—building trade jobs, which need to be union with their own healthcare, pensions and their own four-to-five-year paid training programs. The unions and workers who support them now need to fight for Project Labor Agreements on all government projects. The union workers also need to vote for leaders who will support unions and the unions need to organize all non-union trades. Also, we need to support non-labor incomes, like the Universal Basic Income (UBI) and get behind corporations paying rent for our Commons. Whe