Union Perspectives

International Brotherhood of Teamsters are following the United Auto Workers in making history with the groundbreaking joint employer decision against Amazon. Now, the Longshoremen have gotten a groundbreaking contract, as well. This is very telling on what labor can do if they all pull together. These are some of the best deals in the last 30 years. However, all can be lost in the next election if our members vote for the wrong candidate. It is not hyperbole, but history, to say Republicans hate unions. This election, all must set aside some of the “piss me off” things and vote for the people who will stand up for unions and the working people, union or nonunion. The richest 1 percent have half of the worlds wealth while the rest of us only have 0.75 percent. Since 2020, this 1 percent have taken 63 percent of all the wealth. In the U.S., 800 billionaires have more than half of the nation’s wealth while the bottom half of our families have 2.5 percent. Do you think these rich peop...

If you are a union worker or wanting to start a union where you work, there will never be a better time to go for better pay and benefits. At this time we have a president and president-to-be walking picket lines supporting union workers—this has never happened in my eighty-three years. Shawn Fain, president of the UAW union, knows this and is making the most of it by winning and, let’s face it, all people like to be on a winning team. All unions should be stepping up for their members and those wanting to be union members. All union members must vote down the GOP and its Project 2025 and Agenda 47 plans, which will destroy our unions and the nonunion minimum wage even your dad and mom’s and even your Social Security will be gone. This is the time to put all differences aside and vote blue to keep our country as it is for all of us. There is always time down the road to make changes and build upon what we have as needed, but to do this we must keep our country of laws that support all ...

It’s time for labor to go for something very big in the U.S., which always seems to lag behind other countries when it comes to workers. Labor is on a very big winning streak and it’s just like the snowball rolling down a hill. The farther it rolls down the hill the bigger and more powerful it becomes. But if it stops, it will just melt away. The union snowball today is still rolling and getting bigger so let’s go for the four-day work week. The four-day work week gives workers more time with their families, enabling them to do more together, which could, conceivably, improve marriages and reduce juvenile delinquency rates. This work week could be a huge lift to the lifestyle of all workers and their families and the social infrastructure of their communities. There are so many unrecognized benefits to a schedule like this. Benefits and pay would remain the same as a five-day work week. The workers would have more time to participate in their children’s activities, volunteer to be a f...

Why do corporations fear a class warfare? Is it because there are more of us than there are of them? Is it because if we put our hands in our pockets all work stops? I think the greedy anti-union people have awaken a sleeping giant and the unions are responding by organizing strikes for better contracts for union like the United Auto Workers (UAW), UPS, Association of Flight Attendants, Teamsters. The working class people have focused on the power that we have when we stand together, and the power that we have when we withhold our labor, nothing is going to move. UAW union labor leader Shawn Fain has restored the unions’ fighting force and called out corporations power in unapologetic terms. Fain wore an “Eat the Rich” T-shirt and announced that “billionaires, in my opinion, don’t have a right to exist.” Yes, it is war and the unions are going to align union contracts across the industries to make way for bigger, bolder strikes. Now is our time when we have the support of our U.S. p...

Unions’ long game is to get all union contracts to expire on the same day nationwide. The United Auto Workers combines contracts ends on April 28, 2028. This could then result in a mass national strike starting on May Day beeginning that year. This could then put enormous pressure on employers, but also on lawmakers. It’s the muscle and sweat of the workers that keeps this country great, not the individual company or corporations. This May Day strike would be the time to change the workers’ world for the better by negotiating for a 32-hour week with the same pay, and the U.S. adopts a healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs. This would also help the employers as they would no longer have to provide healthcare. By striking, the UAW won same pay for new workers, all UAW contracts will end on the same date, a 25-percent pay increase, a cost of living adjustments, a guaranteed right to strike over potential plant closures, and also the right to vote to unionize through the card che...

Bank of America is rooting for there to be less jobs so the employers will be back in control. Joblessness could help companies bring people back in the office where they want them, despite evidence that shows employees are more productive when they work from home. These titans of wealth would like to see a recession just to put the little people back in their place so they can regain the control they had over the working class who feared losing their jobs or having their hours cut. Some employers enjoy watching their workers grovel for their jobs that pay low wages where missing a day’s work could mean not being able to pay the rent or make a car payment or pay the utilities. Good timing and planning are the ways to win strikes with as much support from all unions that can get involved. The young workers are getting smarter even though they don’t teach about labor and the capitalist system in high school. The young workers can now just look up labor laws and history and how the ca...

The working people’s army are marching together for a better life for all working people. Unions on strike or getting ready to strike should follow the example of the Writers Guild of America, this union’s members have been on strike for four months and counting. WGA’s negotiating committee met today with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. No agreement has been met as yet. People thirty and younger are for unions by 88 percent and 90 percent support strikes. Why are thousands of workers across America on strike right now? asks Robert Reich, professor, lawyer, author, artist, and presidents Ford and Carter’s labor secretary. CEO pay has increased 1,460 percent since 1978 while typical workers’ pay increased by 18 percent. When auto CEOs say they can’t afford to pay their workers more, remember that the Big Three have made $250 billion in profits the past decade. Reich points out that stock buybacks became legal in 1982, this is a form of market manipulation. By...

If passed, Assembly Bill 257 would give the 725,000 franchise fast food employees real bargaining power. The Service Employees International Union is pushing this bill, which would give unions a foothold into the low wage, no benefits industry where unionization has long been elusive. California has been a proving ground for the unions’ efforts to advocate for low wage, no benefit workers. Los Angeles adopted a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2015, and the state followed suit in 2016. There has been some success as these workers wake up to the fact that they hold the true power in their jobs, without them, the franchise holders have nothing. At Starbucks, the employees are voting on unionizing at more and more stores across the country. The difference is, Starbucks is owned by one corporation that does not have franchises. The Assembly Bill covers franchised workers and gives these employees a direct voice with their employers. does have to answer to the National Labor Relations Board....

In all adversity there is a window of opportunity, a window the University of California’s student researchers crawled through during the pandemic to unionize. Throughout the UC campuses, almost 15,000 student researchers signed authorization cards to join the already 80,000 other academic workers across the country who unionized with the United Auto Workers. The time is right for trade and factory workers to ask for a union to receive better, fair wages, benefits and safety. These simple workers’ rights were why the UC student researchers unionized. They were doing the work but had no rights or protections for that work, they struggled to pay rent or buy necessities, so they were essentially working as indentured servants. At this time there is a shortage of workers. You can tell businesses and corporations are getting desperate when they offer potential workers anything from an iPhone to thousands of dollars as sign on bonuses. It will get better for workers when out country starts r...

When does the labor start looking at building the party of labor to represent all wage slaves who want to join? We start with the assets we have on hand our dues paying members then when we have the members and money we started electing people who will defend labor wage slaves and see if the Democrats want to join us if so then we would build a 50/50 partnership with one side having 51 percent one year or two and then the other side having the 51 percent for an equal amount of time if they want. If we win this November we need for the Democrats to show us what they can and are willing to do to educate and grow our labor movement. If they, the Democratic Party, do not back the wage slaves and 99 percent, then we need to promote our unions and tell the wage slaves what we have done and what we can and will do for our fellow working families. If we have to start a new party so be it, but if the Democratic Party wants to partner with us then good. But, either way labor has to start rebuil...

Our union messages have already been written. All we need to do is put them on the television, radio and in print. One message we need for California union workers was written by UAW past president Walter Reuther: There’s a direct relationship between the breadbox and the ballot box and what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls and our members need to understand this or we will lose this in the fall election. The second union message was written by a union leader past president of the AFL, Samuel Gompers, was titled “What Does Labor Want?” "We want more schools, houses, and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less greed, more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright." The third message comes from President Franklin Roosevelt on wages. He wrote in 1933 ...