Union Perspectives

The race for single-payer healthcare or Medicare For All it will be between the Bernie Sanders people, The GOP and the corporate Democratic Party. If the GOP wants to keep their seats in the Senate and Congress, they need something big, like healthcare that the people will be pleased with. The GOP is desperate, they have a loser of a president and they have failed to achieve any meaningful legislation. The GOP has said they want to replace the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare since it was passed with something better, but their definition of better so far was deadly for many. They just need to make healthcare for all ages and if they do this they will keep power for a long time. The U.S. pays more in healthcare than Italy, Britain, Japan, Australia, France, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland, and many others. Our politicians have sold us out to the highest bidder, the insurance companies, and we need to make them pay for putting their pockets before our health. It is imperativ...

Why single-payer/Medicare for all would save money and help the capitalist system. One, if no business or corporation, like the auto plants did not have to pay health insurance, they could sell their vehicles overseas cheaper. If all the people had health insurance, a person could start a business and not worry about having to provide health insurance for themselves, their families and their employees, which would put more people to work and their jobs could be backfilled by another worker. People who could retire, but must keep working until Medicare covers them could now retire without worrying about their healthcare. They could retire and open a job up for someone new.  Countries with universal healthcare are: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Solvenia (where Trump's current wife is f...

We need healthcare for everyone and Medicare single payer is the best way to go. This would relieve businesses of the burden of healthcare and make our goods more competitive overseas where labor is cheap. Think of car and truck manufacturing not having to pay for healthcare for their workers. This would cut the cost of their vehicles, which would give them more profits or make for more sales. Either way, it is a win. Then there are all the manufactured products, like televisions, washing machines and dryers, stoves or steel, plus all of the technology products we sell here and abroad. The local government employees would not have to ask the states, counties, and cities for healthcare for the law enforcement, firefighters, and maintenance workers, again saving money for the government, which could go toward healthcare taxes. There is argument that we need a healthcare safety net for all, but disagreement on the best way to achieve it.Some Democrats, including Senator Bernie Sanders ...

There are other alternatives to banking with the corporately owned big banks that screw over the little guy. Some of these alternatives are being used around the world and in a couple of places in the U.S. Alternative currency keeps local cash locally. Some foreign cities where this is being used is Basel, Switzerland, Nantes, France, and Bristol and Brixton, England. The Banque WIR, an alternative to the Swiss franc, has been using its own currency, the WIR, since 1934. Nantes created its own currency based on the WIR. Also, there are the Bristol pound and the Brixton pound used as alternative versions of the British pound. Here in the U.S., there is Ithaca, New York, called the Ithaca Convertible, one Ithaca dollar equals one U.S. 1 dollar. Then there is the Deli Dollars that arrived in 1989, started by Frank Tortoriello, a deli owner sold $10 for $8 to be used in his refurbished deli; followed by Massachusetts’ Berkshire Farm preserve notes or BerkShares in the early 1990s. Sa...

There are just not enough jobs that pay a living wage in the world, which helps perpetuate the wage inequality and the opportunity inequality. If the world is to stay with the present capitalist system it will have to change to a hybrid system of capitalism and wages will have to be supplemented by non-labor cash or the equivalent of such. The non-labor cash is out there just not collected yet. It is could be called co-owned wealth, one could be rent from financial infrastructure, which financial firms pay nothing at this time, and another is air, which gets into carbon that causes the most harm in the atmosphere for carbon absorption. Then there is the intellectual property protection within the U.S and the worldwide, which corporations pay nothing. These are our Commons. There is also the electromagnetic spectrum used for radio, television and mobile phones. A 20 percent value added fee on those spectrum intensive industries would generate $84 billion for dividends to pay rent to the...

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...

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...

What does the USA, Sweden and Switzerland have in common? It is the fight about the inequality between labor and the oligarchies. Today in Switzerland, one of the fighters against inequality is Marilule Wili. Years ago, many of fighters of inequality came from Sweden. In 1905, the USA had a labor hero by the name of Joe Hill, but he was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund and also known as Joseph Hillstrom in a Gävle, a Swedish village. He came to America and first reached prominence on the West Coast while he worked to organize the International Workers of the World (IWW) Wobblies; and Hill was also a song writer and was known as the “Troubadour of Discontent." Hill was framed for murdering a grocer and his son and shot to death in Salt Lake City, Utah. After his execution thousands of Wobblies made him their martyr and his work continued on. His last famous words just before he died were, “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize,” and it looks like the spirit is still here and in Swede...

The best chance for wage slaves to prevail in their fight for higher wages can be found in the tireless work of two women: Kshama Sawant in Seattle, WA, and Marilule Wili in Switzerland. Sawant is a Seattle city council member and Wili is a waitress and musician and a member of the organization, Generation Basic Income, an activist group trying to persuade voters to amend Switzerland’s Constitution to guarantee every citizen a yearly income of $33,000 a year whether they work or not. They have gotten the necessary 100,000 signatures to place the initiative on the ballot to put it before the country’s voters. The vote will be in two or three years. Philosophically, the idea of equality has a long history drawing support from the likes of the English/American revolutionary Thomas Paine and economist Milton Friedman. The best minimum wages are in Denmark, which gives its poorest citizens $1,800 a month; enough to keep their citizens out of poverty. This all can be financially feasible by...