Union Perspectives

There needs to be some very large changes in order to get our country back on track, and keep up with the changing types of jobs, climate change, healthcare, and the cost of living to include food, fuel and Social Security. One thing the current administration could do to help out the elderly is to undo Reagan’s taxing of Social Security followed by a cost of living increase. We need to start lowering the age eligibility for Medicare to at least to the age of 50 and eventually to Medicare for All. We need a universal basic income (UBI) in order to save our capitalist system. People have to have money to spend for without it the capitalist system withers on the vine and dies. Taxes paid on sales should stay within the city and county to fund fire departments, law enforcement, streets, parks, among others necessities. As usual, the republicans will scream, ‘how do we pay for treating our citizens with respect’ or ‘we can’t afford it.’ The same tired garbage they always trot out when the...

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...

Out living your pensions, we, who had a good pension 20 years ago when we retired, have seen our monthly pay slowly drain away. With a pension there is no savings and the saving we had when working also slips away to make up the difference in our pension shortcomings. This is if we were lucky enough to stash money away while working and not experiencing any major setbacks, like an illness, house fire, or natural disaster. Just keeping with repairs on a house can be drain a budget even if you are skilled enough to have the health and knowledge to do the repairs yourself and not have to hire someone to do the work for you or let your largest investment deteriorate, which will impact the value on your house should you need to sale it. So, what can a person do to compensate their income? If they are lucky and have good health, they might be able to find a job, but a job that compensates a 65 to 80 year old for their knowledge and experience might be difficult to find. If you can find a...

For the universal basic income (UBI) to work it must be for all—the very poor to the very rich and those in-between. If the rich do not want the UBI, they can opt out and used elsewhere. If all received UBI, no group of people can be named or vilified for taking the money. The unions should want a UBI because if there were a UBI, unions could focus on work place safety, training, productivity, healthcare and pensions. The unions would no longer be vilified for wanting higher wages than the nonunion workers. The unions need to get behind the UBI as part of their strategy for the future and their survival. Union employees could possibly start their own business like I did when I received the GI Bill money to go to school. The GI Bill provided enough for me to go to school, buy groceries while working for a sheet metal union job during the day. The people who are going to fight against a UBI would like to divide workers, unemployed, rich, race, poor, gender, lifestyle, union and nonun...

I recently had a conversation with a person who asked why no one wants to work at minimum wage jobs. While this is a good question, it also shows how disconnected the person, who lives a comfortable life, is from the economic reality of so many in our country.  This person pays workers $9 to $11 an hour to do work in a large orchard. I suggested that perhaps some people have given up seeking work because the income they’d earn would amount to them merely existing on minimum wage. Minimum wage workers may earn enough to pay rent and maybe have a little leftover for food but little else, like gas, utilities, car insurance and clothes. Low wages are not a good motivation to go to work with the prospect of never getting ahead. It's not hard to empathize with these workers when you learn what Robert Reich recently pointed out, “Wall Street bonuses totaled $27.5 billion last year, which is more than 3 times the combined annual earnings of all American workers employed full-time at the...

UBI (universal basic income) is gaining traction in the U.S. and worldwide. Support for a UBI is no longer the working person’s dream, but economists and finance writers are now writing in favor of redistributing the wealth in a fair way. Naysayers will always be against a UBI because they’re blabbering the ultra wealthy’s rhetoric, ignoring that a UBI keeps the capitalist system thriving while creating jobs to fill the spending by the people. Capitalism is driven by 76 percent of the majority of people, who actually spend their money instead of hoarding it. Capitalists say because they create something or take risks with other people’s money they should be able to hang onto all of their wealth, but what they fail to admit to is if they didn’t have people’s money to speculate with or the average person didn’t buy their products, they wouldn’t have their wealth. The UBI concept was dubbed “helicopter money” by the GOP financial guru Milton Friedman some 50 years ago when he said putti...

In 1797, Thomas Paine wrote, “Every individual is born with legitimate claims on natural property or its equivalent.“ With all that is going on in Washington, D.C., that has all our attention, we should not forget what is really important to the 99 percent, which is the economic inequality. What we need to do to fix it is a new bill of right or sorts that would include, such things as universal basic income (UBI), minimum wage of $15 to $24 an hour, universal healthcare, free education, more unions, and to rebuild the wealth of the 99 percent. We need a housing plan like the old G.I.Bill, which paid G.I.s to go to school and made it easier to buy a house with very little costs upfront. We need to vote in people who will support this bill of rights for the 99 percent. We are never going to have enough jobs for everyone and even the jobs we have or will have will not pay enough to live on. Most jobs will be part time with no benefits and most people will have to work two to three jobs...

Yes, we, today, are smart enough to rethink our Constitution and should not be afraid to do it. To change our Constitution, 34 states must vote to hold a national convention. To amend the Constitution, it takes 38 of the states to ratify the changes. There are many things that should be looked at—good or bad. The bad things include a long obsession by the conservative movement for a so-called balanced budget amendment. This would make the government powerless to borrow its way out of a recession. The government would have to cut spending at the very moment it was most needed. The cuts would most likely be made to benefit programs instead of raising taxes on the wealthiest and eliminating the inheritance tax. The effort to change the Constitution is being funded by the Koch brothers, Coors, DeVos and the Walton families, who produce op-eds and other positive-sounding propaganda that touts the need for such a convention. At this time, 29 states have voted to a hold a Constitutional conv...

Rural America was seceded to the GOP by the Democrats, likewise the labor trades seceded the rural counties to non-union shops. In the old days, unions, in these rural areas, got bigger and bigger until they decided they could leave the rural counties' side, and compete in the large cities, foregoing smaller populated counties, which used to be union sanctuaries. This type of strategy is not working. Retreating never works. It is just like going into a fort or a castle, which sooner or later, the fortifications will be breached. All that is happening is just buying time and the Democrats and labor unions have both run out of time. It is time now for an offense and come out of the forts and castles and take back rural America. They, the labor and Democrats, should work together with all their resources combined, such as money and people power. If used wisely, they both could become relevant again in our rural countrysides. By attending all public meetings, using the time before ea...