Union Perspectives

Why is there a 700 percent increase in high end bunkers from 2015 to 2016? It is not fear of a nuclear attack, but fear of a Russian-style revolution. Here, the American super rich are investing in subterranean residences at an unprecedented rate, spending as much as $100 million on fortified bunkers designed to withstand any kind of disaster. The survival-condo project quickly sold out—a dozen single family luxury apartments in a converted missile silo. Bill Gates has shelters below every one of his homes. Why is there an impending disaster gripping the very rich? Is it that they know that the inequality with the masses will not last long before the masses demand their rights as humans and the right to a living wage or a universal basic income (UBI) to compensate for the lack of jobs, healthcare, free education, pensions, childcare, vacation and the chance for a home. You know, like the rich take for granted. If the rich think they can just stick their heads in a hole like an ostr...

The workers are losing while our labor leaders sleep or hide out, hoping they can hold onto their position until they retire. Our labor leaders appeared to have given up the rural areas and pulled their efforts into the big cities. This is like having a fort with a moat around it and think they are safe. We all know forts can be conquered in the long run. It’s as if labor leaders learned nothing from the Clinton era. We, at this time, are losing with the Right to Work laws being passed in 27 states, and now there is legislation in Congress for a national Right to Work law. Couple this with legislation in Congress to ban the Davis-Bacon Act on prevailing wage law, and the attacks on union pensions. These things will drive the nail into the heart of unions. This is happening in other countries, like the UK and France, who are electing leaders, such as Marine Le Pen, a far right leader. We, here, in the U.S., cannot just depend on the Bernie Sanders-types. We need new, strong unions wi...

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...

Labor needs to vote labor in local, state and U.S. government elections. The GOP elephant was the right pick for its logo for they never forget and will not change even if it means its demise. To think that they are still angry about the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt some 75 years ago; this is just stupid. They should rename the party ‘Gone on Past’ stupid party. Eleanor Roosevelt had to fight the ‘right to work for less’ 70 years ago and the stupid party is still waving that right to work for less flag. Eleanor Roosevelt’s argument then was, “I am opposed to right to work legislation because it does nothing for working people but, instead, gives employers the right to exploit labor.” She was right then and what she said 70 years ago is still accurate today. So what I do not understand is why labor is still losing the fight for there are more wage slaves than there are oligarchies. Is it that maybe the wage slaves are just as stupid as the GOP? If so, then the question sho...

Is manufacturing returning to the USA and is this why the oligarchies are buying state representation and governments to change union states to right-to-work for less states. Wage slaves make about 15 percent less than workers in union states where union workers are made to pay dues and union state workers work much safer. The large companies that went out of the country have figured out that after a few years their products get knocked off and it is extremely hard to update their products. Also fuel is an extra cost that was not as big a factor a few years ago and lastly, they have found that getting the product out faster is good for business. So if manufacturing comes back home where can they cut costs and what they see is it’s in labor costs so they are putting a full court press to change as many states to right to work for less as fast as they can, which will weaken unions’ power. This is why the oligarchies like the Koch brothers and American Legislative Exchange Council just ...

There are now 23 work for less states in the U.S. How did this happen? Well, one way was how the legislation was worded. The bill was written as ‘The Right to Work.’ So who would vote against the right to work? For everyone has the right to work, but that was not the real issue. The real reason was to weaken labor unions by letting workers be in a union shop and not pay dues. A large group of union members voted for this not understanding what it would do to them. To make matters worse there are a lot of union members who joined the GOP because the GOP was successful in hijacking outdoor sports, such as hunting, fishing and shooting sports with the fear of gun laws, environmental laws and it was - and is – just bull. A lot of fire personnel, law enforcement and postal workers vote GOP. Maybe they thought that the GOP would not attack them. How did that work for the Air Traffic Controllers? Now the most recent attacks are on the civil workers in Arizona, New Hampshire, Utah and Ca...

American Legislative Exchange Council is pushing the union busting resolutions to make states “right to work” states. Dr. Martin Luther King had said was one of the greatest frauds ever perpetuated on workers. What ‘right to work’ would do is let workers, who are in a union pay dues or opt not to pay. If they opt out they still get the benefits from the union as the dues-paying workers. Some pay, while others get a free ride. I always thought Republicans and the Tea Party members were against free rides – something for nothing. What the ‘right to work’ does is weaken the unions by sharing the benefits in an open shop whereas in a closed shop everyone pays their fair share. Weakening the unions is what ‘right to work’ and ‘pay check protection’ is all about and ALEC and the GOP won’t give up until they succeed in destroying all the protections in place for workers. This is what this is all about. There are currently 23 states with ‘right to work’ legislation; and Arizona is currently...