Union Perspectives

The $15 an hour minimum wage has been virtually stopped by governors passing $15 an hour minimum wage laws that will take years for workers to realize. The slow walking of the minimum wage is nothing more than an attempt to pacify workers and those who support them, but nothing more. What good will $15 an hour in six years do for workers today, especially those effected by minimum wage laws that have lots of loopholes. I cautioned about politicians who would slow walk an increase of the minimum wage a year or so ago and, unfortunately, I was right. New York and California are slow walking the states’ minimum wage increase, but they added such safety valves as having state officials who are to conduct annual analysis of the economy in each region to determine whether a temporary suspension of the scheduled increases is necessary, the government press release states. Now, guess who won’t be on the panel making the decisions on whether or not wages should be increased–wage slaves. The wo...

What the Hell Happened? We need the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and we were very close in 2009. President Obama and Vice President Biden co-authored the bill and it had passed the Congress. Organized labor invested $450 million in the Obama campaign, and the Democrats had or were very close to a 60 filibuster-proof vote in support of the Act. The AFL-CIO had a war chest of $14 million dedicated to the passage of the Act. What’s more, the Democrats and organized labor, and the media did an excellent job of keeping it very quiet, and most businesses were unaware of the campaign. This was to be passed in 2009 so what the hell happened? 
 We know that a union busting organization by the name of “People Works International” was on this like a dog on a bone. Check these people out: http://www.peopleworkslabor.com?EFCA.html They are a piece of work. We need to get to know them to know our enemy (Art of War). We have a chance to beat them. What did the AFL-CIO get for its money...

Just not in the U.S.A. Big box stores are told by governments that if they want to operate in their countries the stores have to allow unions to exists or form in their stores. For example, Wal*Mart had to allow its stores in South Africa, China, Brazil, Argentina, and even the England to form unions --- everywhere it seems except in the United States. Why is Wal*Mart spending millions of dollars fighting pro-union legislation, when it could be spending that money on its American workers. Why are other countries taking care of their workers, but our country isn’t? What the hell? It looks like these governments are helping their people. Are their workers more appreciated than our people? Like I’ve said before, the corporations can ship our jobs out of country, but they will then ship their goods back to this country to sell. This is when we need to organize. This is our opportunity to organize the big box stores. Our government could help us by passing the Employee Free Choice Act (...

Are we, the working class, nonunion, union, and retirees, ready to start pushing back on the assault on us? Understand that the corporations lead the GOP and will not stop until union and worker rights, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, Social Security and Medicare are gone. The GOP have bankrupt our economy and now think they can force us into cutting our programs. This is not new. The GOP and corporations have never given up on this since Frances Perkins and President Roosevelt, during the Great Depression, passed and signed into law Social Security, unemployment, minimum wage, and the right to organize. At this point in history, union membership had fallen to 5 percent. Today, union membership is roughly at 3 percent private and 30 percent public. In order to increase the union numbers we would need to have card check or Employee Free Choice Act needs to be brought up for a vote, but we need a party strong enough to bring card check for a vote, and to fight for and represent u...

Unions are weak in the U.S. because of a labor fragmentation in the character of American liberalism. To counter this fragmentation, labor must make what progress it can with the community and not at the expense of the community. There was a time when leftists of all persuasions saw the unions as the vanguard of social reconstruction. And now our unions greatest danger comes from an explosive division within the working population itself. Walter Ruether observed in 1984, “As unionized labor has become but an island of well-being in a sea of resentful low-wage aspirants, income inequality within the working class that has reached levels unseen for more than two generations.” Corporations have found that years of deindustrialization and wage stagnation has generated a huge reservoir of eager replacement workers whose residual commitment to their working class neighbors had long since been extinguished in their desperate scramble to hold onto their houses, cars and dignity. Maybe we n...

The reason the underpaid, or 39 hours worker with no benefits, needs the card check tool is to bring the worker back to the possibility of getting a union where they work. We used to have a good National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which enforced the labor laws, but over time, just like the tax laws, loop holes were found by the union busters, some who were ex-labor lawyers who went into a very large new industry of busting unions and disrupting elections. They would advise owners to intimidate their workers by telling them they would close their shops or move them. They would fire some, give raises or promotions to others. All this was against NLRB laws, but they still did it. The loop hole was the time it took to set up and execute the election. With card check, the workers only need 51 percent of the workers signing a card stating they would like to form or join a union. The employer and employees would have to sit down and negotiate the conditions for the contract for the worke...