Union Perspectives

The success of the GOP has been its long game. They started what they call “The Transformations” during the Reagan’s election to reshape the American Society. Now they have Project 2025 and Agenda 47 aka Trump’s shadow government, which is essentially Project 2025, but Trump’s version. Labor and the working people are the only ones who can beat back these regressive, anti-worker plans. Labor must take these remaining 80-plus days before the election and organize more members. If your union doesn’t have the need or resources to expand to expand their unions then at least support others who want a union or are on the picket line, like Cornell University employees. This could be labor’s last stand. In 80 days, all bets are off if the GOP wins. Your vote could be the one that wins to keep labor unions and Social Security fore retirees or your vote could take it away and Project 2025 will be the law of the land. We, in labor, must start to defend our union jobs and our pensions and learn h...

If you are a union worker or wanting to start a union where you work, there will never be a better time to go for better pay and benefits. At this time we have a president and president-to-be walking picket lines supporting union workers—this has never happened in my eighty-three years. Shawn Fain, president of the UAW union, knows this and is making the most of it by winning and, let’s face it, all people like to be on a winning team. All unions should be stepping up for their members and those wanting to be union members. All union members must vote down the GOP and its Project 2025 and Agenda 47 plans, which will destroy our unions and the nonunion minimum wage even your dad and mom’s and even your Social Security will be gone. This is the time to put all differences aside and vote blue to keep our country as it is for all of us. There is always time down the road to make changes and build upon what we have as needed, but to do this we must keep our country of laws that support all ...

Unions’ long game is to get all union contracts to expire on the same day nationwide. The United Auto Workers combines contracts ends on April 28, 2028. This could then result in a mass national strike starting on May Day beeginning that year. This could then put enormous pressure on employers, but also on lawmakers. It’s the muscle and sweat of the workers that keeps this country great, not the individual company or corporations. This May Day strike would be the time to change the workers’ world for the better by negotiating for a 32-hour week with the same pay, and the U.S. adopts a healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs. This would also help the employers as they would no longer have to provide healthcare. By striking, the UAW won same pay for new workers, all UAW contracts will end on the same date, a 25-percent pay increase, a cost of living adjustments, a guaranteed right to strike over potential plant closures, and also the right to vote to unionize through the card che...

It took a pandemic to get workers to realize how much power they actually have. Calling their movement “Striketober”, workers from John Deer Tractor, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in Hollywood, education employees, healthcare workers, prison guards, and employees from Kellogg and Nabisco, among others are realizing they have the power with employers to make or break the business. In August, 4.3 million workers walked off their jobs. This is the highest number of employees to quit their jobs in the 21 years that the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey has been tracking these jobs, according to Robert Reich, who calls this movement “an unofficial general strike.” Striketober is the war of the 99 percent vs the 1 percent, and the 99 percent must win to keep our country in a democracy. These strikers are examples of inequality that is ripping our country apart and other countries around the world. The top 1 Percent evaded $163,000,000,000 in taxes,...

What do the jobs look like today compared to the past? One is very few jobs today will last until retirement. Another is jobs today will probably be lost to automation of some type. All workers should have skills in a profession and a trade of some sort. Most jobs today do not pay enough for one person to support a family, which was not true in 1950s—1980s. It was in the 1980s—the Nixon and Reagan years when unions came under attacked by the anti-union GOP and amped up in the 1990s when the corporate Democrats helped the GOP—in the Clinton years. The work available today is becoming more gig jobs or part-time jobs than full-time work. It’s only part-time jobs coming out of labor centers like the temp agencies, Labor Ready, Adecco or Professional Staffing Solutions. The temp agencies convince company owners that they will save money them by doing all the paperwork connected to employees, and, in return, the company pays the hired workers and the temp agency. If a hired workers gets $1...

When did unions lose the support and backing of the Democrats? It was after Reagan dismantled the air traffic controllers, who by the way voted for Reagan for president and donated to his campaign. After Reagan got into office it was open war against unions by the GOP, whose followers cared more about guns than their paychecks, unions or pensions. They voted against their own best interest. With the decline in money to support unions, candidates (mostly Democratic) and even the ones who said before elections they would support unions, such as passing card check, when they were elected, but then reneged once elected. This really took off under Bill Clinton, who dragged the party to a centrist position to better serve his new contributors. He dumped the unions for Wall Street money and became a front man for Wall Street, big banks and corporations, such as Walmart. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz would never have gotten away with the biased and corrupt handling of the DNC that she ha...

As income inequality becomes more known across the world, people are responding, tired of the disparity and not being adequately compensated for their work. Income inequality is greater now than it was in the “Roaring ‘20s” and though we went through a recession, the rich keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. As Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders surges in the polls, the British just elected its version of Sanders when it elected Jeremy Corbyn as the Labor Party’s leader in a landslide victory, by almost 60 percent of the votes. Shocked by the outcome, Prime Minister Cameron resorted to fear and intimidation when he tweeted: “The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security.” It’s interesting how the U.S. and Britain’s conservative leaders tanked their economies by falsely leading their countries into war with Iraq followed by deep recessions, and the wage slaves paid dearly for their poor voting decisions. T...

The vilification of the union name and labor movements started around World War I, when the U.S. government broke the back of the International Workers of the World (IWW). Some of IWW members were against the war despite that fact that many IWW members served honorably in military. The next onslaught against labor was brought on by the actions of Jimmy Hoffa for abuse of the Teamsters’ union members pensions. The McClellan Committee, led by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. When the McClellan investigation was over, Senator Barry Goldwater went after the Reuther brothers, mostly Walter, who was the United Auto Workers president. The AFL then supported the Vietnam War and fought in the streets against fellow union members, who were mostly Democrats protesting the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. This did not earn the AFL any points with the GOP; in fact, they viewed the AFL members as suckers. Walter Reuther was sickened by the news coverage of union workers beating up protesters. He said it ...

Bullies: kids bully with their mouths and fists, billionaires bully with money. The DeVos, Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the Walton family are just some of the oligarchy bullies, who see unions as an enemy of freedom and union leaders as thugs. Interesting the only freedom these billionaires are concerned with are their own. Their hatred of all things union and why they want to destroy unions is because they cannot control unions and unions are the only thing standing between their obscene wealth and making the U.S. a Third World country. To these greedy bastards money is the true power and with that they want to destroy the power source for the unions’ money by passing “right to work’ laws in Michigan and other states. If passed, these laws will essentially ruin unions and defund Democrats’ election contributions. The oligarchies are looking to the 2016 presidential race. They will push for less government, less taxes, fewer regulations, which all, in their selfish eyes, destro...

What is the commonality between the old Nazi Brown Shirts of Germany, the Greek Golden Dawn Party and the USA Tea Party? One is they were funded by the oligarchies; two is they all started out as laughable, but soon became more powerful, more racist and more fascist than anyone thought possible. They are antiunion, against immigrants and will crucify anyone not willing to go along with their agenda. The Greek Golden Dawn traces their roots back to the Metaxas dictatorship in the late 1930s to the Nazi collaboration during the occupation in WWII. Now, it looks like the USA’s Tea Party is starting to use the Brown Shirts and Golden Dawn playbook and even the conservative party of England is getting on the bandwagon. It is the whole oligarchies against the proletarian class. It’s warfare: the money against the workers. The stupid people who think they belong with the rich are just bought and brainwashed. This is where the oligarchies find their troops. If these wannabe rich people woul...

Saturday, August 6th, 2011 Friends, From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated. Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "I...