Union Perspectives

The $15 to $16 an hour minimum wage fight must have a large outreach of community-based support and education of the public in the overall good that will come from higher wages for the lower wage workers. There are 46 million people in this country living in poverty. Between 2009 and 2011, all the new income generated in this country went to the top 1 percent making the income inequality in this country greater than in any other developed country. It looks like some of the corporations are starting to see the benefits of more money in the pockets of our wage slaves will help not only the workers, but will mean more profits for the corporation. It will not mean fewer jobs, but not more jobs to keep up with the customer demands for the food industry and manufacturers. I think the corporations are really starting to see the benefits of paying a good living wage and benefits. Some of these corporations are Costco, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Raley’s, among others. They see that one of the ways...

Nothing gets built if not for labor so labor must be able to have a slice of the pie one way or the other. It would be nice if all large corporations, like Costco, which is non-union, would pay and treat their employees like they’re worth something. Safeway and most Raley’s supermarkets are unionized and treat their employees worthwhile. I hope there are more, but when you shop at these stores you know it is a good place to work. You can just feel it and tell by the employees and the employees can probably afford to buy the things they sell. This is how it should be. The carpenter should be able to buy the house he builds, the autoworker should be able to buy the car she builds, and the food worker should not go hungry. This is the way it should work out. A working person must think of themselves as a business, and the asset they have is their body so the worker must be healthy, educated, and have all the tools in which to make money. The worker will have to sale their lives and bod...

Why do local small businesses support the International Chamber of Commerce when they support low wages for the 99% wage slaves? They are also one of the oldest enemies of labor unions and the 99%. This never made sense to me for the wage slaves are the ones who buy the goods from the businesses who support the Chamber, when the Chamber ultimately doesn’t not support them. You would think the local businesses would want the slave wages to have more money to spend on the businesses goods and which would mean more jobs to make goods to sell and also pay more taxes to support local government. With this in mind, what sense does it make when businesses think they win when they can defeat a prevailing wage job, such as the Turtle Bay Sheraton Hotel in Redding, CA? Their win took $1.1 million in wages out of the pockets of the local wage slaves and therefore the local economy. You would think that the local businesses would be up in arms. One-point-one million dollars would have been a n...