Union Perspectives

The death of our country will be by a thousand small injuries inflicted by the ambitions of politicians for their own shortsighted gains and taking bribes for their votes. These politicians enter politics earning $174,000, but end up bringing home an income in the millions for voting the way special interests instruct them to. Take Senator Joe Manchin, he received $1,004,820 from “Securities & Investment,” $826,403 from “Lawyers/Law Firms,” $24,750 from “Tellurian Inc” and $19,900 “Starkey Hearing Technology.” Senator Krysten Sinema received $2,263,684 from “Retired,” $1,655,535 from “Lawyers/Law Firms,” $55,845 from “Davita Inc.,” and $54,900 from “Crescent Capital Group.” These two bulked at President Biden’s attempts to help the little people. Unfortunately, Manchin and Sinema are just two of the many who have sold their votes to the highest bidder. The citizens take the durability of our country for granted and refuse to vote out or condemn people who sell their votes to the...

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...

Good news, people, Fox “news” is reporting our country is so great you can work until you drop dead. Isn’t that wonderful? It didn’t report what kind of job you’ll be slaving away at, but you won’t be able to retire so don’t quit your job. Fox did not address stagnate wages, escalating housing and basic needs costs, full-time jobs being replaced by gig jobs and inequality created by the pay gap between CEOs and the workers. In the 1950s and until 1965, this gap was 20 to 1. In the 1970s through 2014, the gap began to widen and then in a steroid induced greed, CEO compensation increased 997 percent compared to the 10.9 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation. Today, the disparity stands at 354 to 1. This doesn’t factor in the disparity between minimum and median wage workers, which is higher in the U.S. than any other industrialized country. On average, a typical median wage worker earns $905 a week versus a minimum wage worker earning $209. There are numerous posts on this ...

Where is the outrage? Why are the old Fox television viewers not outraged over the gas prices, which are now more than $3.99 and higher a gallon? Food is also escalating in prices, as are the cost of heating and cooling our homes and businesses. Most of the Fox watchers are Social Security pensioners with limited income, which, thanks to Ronald Reagan, is taxed—again. Even with Medicare, most have to drive to the doctor’s appointment and gas at $3.99 a gallon, leaves less in the food and housing budget. All you hear from these old people is crickets about why this is happening. Think back to when President Obama was in office and how loud they screamed about gas prices and how he wore a tan suit—all because they were spoon fed outrage from Fox entertainment news. How are these people paying the difference in these rate increases? Is it by credit cards, skimping on their medications, applying for other government assistance programs, like Meals on Wheels, relying on family members or ...

Now is time for all unions, AFL-CIO, to step up and put their differences aside just like former president of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Walter Reuther dreamed of. It’s time for unions to do something bold, like Medicare for all and free education. Unions were the leaders in all these areas, consider child labor laws, free speech laws, pensions, and unemployment benefits when people were out of work; and the Social Security we have today. All of these things will go away if we do not come together and fight. At this time, it is workers’ unions against the corporations and the very, very rich, who would like to break our unions and even take away the minimum wage. We even know what their play book is on how the GOP is going to do this. The tax breaks Trump gave the rich has put us into debt is step one, step two is Trump and the GOP spends as much money as they can on the military complex, making many of the rich even richer...

Now that the $15 an hour minimum wage has legs, we should start the fight for how people have little chance to find a lucrative job that will last their entire working life and end with a pension and healthcare. The manufacturing jobs are either relocated to another country or just about to be eliminated by machines or robots. Retail is going by the wayside as the brick and mortar stores are replaced by online shopping. What’s left are tech jobs, service jobs, and the best—building trade jobs, which need to be union with their own healthcare, pensions and their own four-to-five-year paid training programs. The unions and workers who support them now need to fight for Project Labor Agreements on all government projects. The union workers also need to vote for leaders who will support unions and the unions need to organize all non-union trades. Also, we need to support non-labor incomes, like the Universal Basic Income (UBI) and get behind corporations paying rent for our Commons. Whe...

Wage slaves who have the illusion that their problems can be solved through electing reformist politicians must remember that the nature of capitalism is not to allow mass needs preference over corporate profits. Demands for services change in social conditions will be vigorously opposed by the ruling class—Koch brothers, Wall Street and all the others. The capitalist-designed electoral system is used to corrupt elected representatives of both parties. Even my hero President Franklin Roosevelt, who purported to assure labor the right to organize trade unions and to bargain collectively with bosses, but it was a hollow promise. In the practice he continued to use the deferral government as a strikebreaker agency, simply using subtler methods than previously used for such purposes. The year 1934 was a hard fought year for labor, but they won while even taking on the National Guard in Toledo, Ohio. May 1934, labor fought the Guard with bare fists and rocks in the 6,000 Auto-lite strike an...

One thing labor has to look forward to is the growth of the technology markets, which typically follows a distinct pattern of power law, or Pareto Curve. Pareto Curve is a small number of players represent a disproportionate share of the rewards. High Tech Internet networks become more valuable the more they are used. It can also generate a kind of winner-takes-all or winner-takes-most markets. This is the start of a revolution in the work place and for the U.S. to have a chance at competition in the world. Businesses, individuals and governments must understand what is going on. Yes, we are having some manufacturing returning to the USA, but the dynamism and creativity that made the U.S. the most innovative nation in the world is faltering. Graduates in the U.S. with at least an associate’s degree has fallen to 12th place in the world. We were once the envy of the world, but then came the greedy GOP’s Tea Party and the Have It All with their heads in a very dark place. This can be ch...

When the sun shines on ice, the ice usually melts and when the sun shines on agendas and methods of the oligarchies they will start to lose ground. The Koch brothers fund Americans for Prosperity—just think about this for a moment. The prosperity is just for the Koch brothers, not for the workers. When they invest they invest to make more money. The Koch brothers are also large contributors to ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), that writes state bills and gives them to Koch supported politicians to get passed in state houses across the nation. Again, this only helps the oligarchies. One only has to look at Wisconsin and New Jersey to see how detrimental these ALEC influenced bills are destroying these states because the laws only help the oligarchies. The Koch brothers and other rich oligarchies have their water boys, who are their mouth pieces, their talking heads, like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and the entire Fox news cast of characters. These corporate whores are als...

Princeton and Northwest universities did a study recently of our government structure and economic state of affairs and determined our democracy has turned into an oligarchy. The report entitled, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens,” used extensive policy data collected from between the years 1981 through 2002 to empirically determine the state of the U.S. political system. The researchers concluded that the U.S. government policies rarely align with the preferences of the majority of Americans, but do favor special interests and lobbying organizations. When a majority of the citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests they lose. Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote the books, “The Prince” and “The Art of War” around the year 1513, pointed out the three types of good government and how they can slip into a bad type of government for the masses. At this time we are an oligarchy form of government, which the study conclu...

The war for $15 to $16 is on and a new enemy has surfaced. In the Art of War, you are to know your enemy. The wage warrior who will be leading the fight to kill any wage increase for the low wage workers is Richard Berman, who works for the restaurant industry. Berman runs a public relations firm. The 71-year-old Berman is a skilled spin master believes that workers are not paid for what they need, but for what they can contribute, which sounds logical until you use logic. What workers can contribute means a lot of different things, such as making who they work for a lot of money. If that is so then the workers should have a piece of that pie. Berman will push that higher wages will make jobs disappear, which is just bullpucky. It will create more jobs for when people have more money to buy products; someone has to make the products being bought or serve the customer at restaurants, which is where Berman will try to scare the workers into believing that new technologies will be used t...

Have the Wisconsin wage slaves figured out that forming a band of brothers and sisters is better than listening to Fox News and electing people who want to destroy their financial way of life? If so, maybe this would be the reason union membership is up in Wisconsin. After Wisconsin workers saw the third largest decline in the nation in 2012, it is now seeing the seventh largest gains in membership from 11.25 percent to 12.34. This surprised even the unions because many believed corruptness of the state’s governor and his Koch-backed minion had essentially destroyed the unions in Wisconsin. Does this also mean that the wage slaves have figured out that taking the high ground to do battle is the way to win, which is putting pressure on the anti-union elected officials and electing people who believe in the cause and will not worry about losing their next election to the anti-union GOP opponents? If there is no candidate who fits that explanation, then put your money and energy into buil...

How do 85 people in the world control the same amount of the wealth as one half of the world’s population or 3.5 billion people? Another way to look at this is each of the 85 richest people has access to the same resources as do 42 million of the world’s “have nots” and last year 210 people joined the ranks of billionaires. So at this time the wealth of the 1 percent is $110 trillion. Now, how do the 99 percent pry away some of this money? One way is to make the oligarchies pay a living wage of at least $15 to $16 an hour and, yes, there is a huge inequality between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, and the old worn out playbook of the GOP anti-union plays will not hold water any more. You know the old sayings like, “pull yourself up by your own boot straps.” I would like to see someone do this. I think it is literally and physically impossible to do. Another ignorant position is only young wage slaves just starting their work experience are the workers at fast food, low wage jobs. Th...

The Tooth Fairy recipients will get a 23 percent increase in payouts for each tooth, which is now worth $5 a piece, and some people are thinking fast-food or low-wage workers should work for minimum wage. In some states, low earners are getting just a little above what a kid gets for a tooth. Now the owners and bosses should be the only tight asses against the $15 to $16 living wage, but I am appalled at the stupidity of some low-wage workers, who think the $15 to $16 an hour would be too much. You would think these ignorant people owned the companies. The naysayers don’t understand that the world is made up of the 99 percent and the 1 percent, and they sure as hell are not, or probably will never be, the 1 percent. The 1 percent does not need any help fighting to keep the minimum wage as it is. In fact, they would like to have it lower or none at all where you become a true wage slave. The only reason I can think of for why a ‘have very little’ would not want a $15 to $16 wage is if ...

It is past time to shut off the money tap to the Democratic National Committee and also bring in our foot soldiers for the people we are helping to elect are giving us nothing in return. In fact, they are supporting the antiunion people by just doing nothing while our rights are expiring. You hear nothing about the loss of our National Labor Relations Board. The Democrats are now calling themselves “Centrists” (Blue Dogs) and as they chase the GOP, the GOP moves further to the extreme right then our Democrats move more toward the center right. Now is the time to draw a new line and it needs to be brought back to the early ‘90s at least and restore all the rights that we wage slaves have lost since then. We cannot keep throwing our money and manpower into the blackhole that we are digging. We must stop digging and start over with new or old tactics that have worked or will work. Our membership is falling fast and with that money in which to support us and fight. This money must be spen...

True power is with the states. Most people worry about the federal government taking away their rights, but in reality it is the states taking away our rights. We the 99% should be worrying about the oligarchies buying state governments and convincing people to elect their chosen senate and assembly politicians. With their state puppet government in place, they can do just about anything they want. Take a look at Detroit and other areas in Michigan. They can change the laws regarding abortion, check out the bills dubbed “Fetal Heartbeat,” recently passed in North Dakota; kicked out all unions, Wisconsin is doing this, and making the state a “right to work” state. They are even taking over the educational system, as in Louisiana, a state that can’t afford to be any more ignorant; and even taking over cities, like Benton Harbor, Michigan. State governments control the National Guard and the local law enforcement and fire departments. Their power is unlimited and we, the people, cannot d...

The fiscal shape of California and the Nation is on the upward move. It was done with a touch of government austerity and new tax revenues, which helped to even the playing field between the 99% and the 1%. And all are winning, such as the Stock Market, which is at an all-time high, and then there’s the Dow Jones, which is at 13.471.22. With gas prices predicted to fall in 2013, this will mean more cash to spend, which will mean more jobs. There is a concern that labor is not prepared to take advantage of these opportunities that are occurring or will soon occur. Labor should be putting its organizers on the streets instead of sitting back and licking its wounds over recent losses and setbacks. Now is the time o show the wage slaves what unions can do and have done for the 99%; and unions need to organize the unorganized workers. There are plenty of them out there. They need to stop trying to build its membership by raiding other unions. That’s a lazy way to get the job done and if th...

The result was an exhaustion of our troops and the huge loss of our capital and respect. The same results of the Air Traffic Controllers loss. With both of these losses we have embolden the GOP anti-worker bullies, which will now give them ahead start in momentum for the November elections. It’s like giving one runner a 50-yard head start in a 100-yard race and the only way the other runner can win is if the first runner trips and falls down. How are we going to trip up the GOP runner and where are we going to get the troops and money to do battle? I think first we must look at what we have been doing wrong, who do we want to lead us into battle, and what is their strategy to win? There is no doubt that we were suckered into trying to recall Walker, and not sticking to a plan of changing who sits in the Wisconsin state Assembly and Senate. We went for revenge instead of voting out the Republican Assembly and Senate state members. There was some success in the Senate, but labor let th...

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 (...

In a previous post I wrote about the GOP’s strategy to go the birth place of union activities and begin dismantling workers’ rights and protections. There is a war going on but unions and progressives aren't paying attention. We’ve seen how the GOP in Wisconsin dismantled public employees’ bargaining rights. Now the GOP is going into Maine, the birthplace of the oldest child labor laws, and seeking to weaken the law that protect children form exploitation. Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, wants all workers younger than 20 years of age to make less than minimum wage. He wants to increase the work week for teens from 20 hours to 24 a week and increase the work hours on a school night from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. The pay would be whatever the employer determined for the first 180 days of employment. After 180 days, the employer could conceivably fire the teen and hire new teens for 180 days again. The common thread is that these two states are birthplaces of the labor laws: public employ...