Union Perspectives

When we don’t know what the antiunion people like American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are planning then all we can do is respond like the thousands of Indiana workers who just got the “right to work” for less jammed up their butts. Now that it is done we talk about how bad it will be for the workers like making more than $5,000 a year less on average maybe we should pay attention to what is going to happen and warn our workers before the damage is done. It’s too late after the legislation has passed to take to the streets in protest. Unions should be holding meetings with its members, educate them and their families on “who” and “what” and “how" labor is being attacked right now. Labor is being attacked in 20 states along the lines of anti-worker legislation. The “what” is to break workers into temp workers without a voice; the “how” is through the power of people and the ballot box; and the “who” are the likes of ALEC, Citizens United, American Crossroads, Chamber of ...

How will and how will the corporate GOP start demonizing our name 99ers? The 99ers are the people in the streets of New York and seventy plus cities across this nation. We are in a class war with the top 1 percent of the nation who owns 40 percent nation’s wealth, and the top 1 percent of Americans take home 24 percent of the nation’s income. They, the top 1 percent of Americans, owns half of the country’s stocks, bonds and mutual funds. They also have, with all that wealth, only 5 percent of the nation’s personal debt, and the top 1 percent is taking in more of the nation’s income since the 1920s. If this is not enough to infuriate us, the 99ers, then we only have to look at what the 1 percent, such as the Koch brothers and other billionaires are doing to us, such as buying entire states from governors to all elected politicians, attorney generals and judges. They then use these positions to break unions and deprive 99ers of their voting rights. They would like to get rid of child l...

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...