Union Perspectives

Time to look at what a $3,000 a month universal basic income (UBI) would do. People would still work, maybe go back to school to improve upon their skills, which would make them a better employee, or maybe some would even start their own business. Some would even take a vacation and spend money to supporting the local economy, spend time with their families or volunteer as a firefighter-first responder, kids sports like Little League or Pop Warner teams, or get involved in local politics, like school or water or fire boards. These are just a few of the things people could do if they had a little extra cash from a UBI. At this time, we have 41 million Americans living below the poverty level. This would end poverty and poverty wages. Wages would go up because people would be spending more, which would mean more jobs to replace the products bought. The UBI idea is not new. The concept was started in England’s Tudor period (1485-1603) basically that every person was to receive a guara...

Is today’s I.C.E. Bone Spur Trump’s equivalent to Hitler’s Brownshirts, which was turned into Hitler’s private army of street thugs? Is I.C.E. the old U.S.’ Silvershirts, who can now threaten and intimidate people at will by splitting up families, even taking children from babies to teens from their parents. They have begun to deport people who have been here, living lawful, peaceful lives some for up to thirty years, some who served honorably in the military and others who are legal immigrants and were awaiting citizenship. Yet Trump’s in-laws quest for citizenship was fast tracked while Trump is denying citizenship to others. These I.C.E. people have a vast statutory power, a chilling new directive from the top inside America’s unfolding immigration tragedy. I.C.E. is the fastest growing bureaucracy than any agency in peacetime. The I.C.E. enforcers are Trump’s private army and they love him because these people are among the less educated, have profound inferiority complexes, an...

The question is do we want war and low wages and no pension, no healthcare and high debt or do we want safe and well-built infrastructure and less inequality? The workers are now fighting over things that take the attention off of what the workers really need and the GOP cult is very good at distraction and they own or have control of most of the media. They control most of the think tanks whose jobs are to crank out anti-union, anti-worker propaganda daily, which are talking and print points. There is only the unions who can counter this, but we have been splintered by the anti-union propaganda. Our unions, the AFL, which are mainly building trades, and the CIO, which are mainly some types of government unions, need to put their petty differences aside and work together. All unions need to organize all the workers from blue collar to white. To show the power all workers have they need to just not show up for one day and then start making demands for better worker rights. This show ...

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...

The anti-union-right wingers have capitalized on how to vilify any one who stands in their way to get richer and gain more power. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan succeeded in making liberals feel ashamed of the word “liberal” and fearful of being associated with socialism. When that worked so well, the GOP started vilifying the word “union” in as many ways as unions drive up the costs of construction, that unions are just corporations and all union leaders’ want is your money in the form of dues. This effort worked so well they convinced unsuspecting workers to vote against their own best interests. Today, the workers are starting to see through all the rhetoric of the anti-working establishment. The teachers have started a new trend by winning higher wages and other benefits. Now, there are others feeling like they can win higher wages, such as $15 to $24 an hour. This will, in turn, be a good thing for elections turn outs to put the right people in office who will support workers, worke...

Most of us know what we don’t like or see as wrong, but what we lack is leaders with a vision on how to fix or support new policies. So far, only the Bern man has the whole platform consisting of climate change, wage inequity, universal  healthcare, fair pensions, Social Security, union support, free education, fixing inequality, housing for all, fixing the damage caused by the Trump administration and many concerns. Adding to this list should be a universal basic income for all; state banks in the states that want them; legalization of drugs with addiction treatment instead of prisons; end the private prison industry; fix the immigration mess; implement a legislation mandating corporations pay for the use of our Commons; reform and reinvest in our public education and allow parents to pay for private or charter schools if they want their children to attend such schools; cut defense spending and use that money toward infrastructure improvement to create employment opportunities for ou...

When will the American people wake up and accept that all wars are engaged and fought to make money so a select few can become even richer? These unconscionable money grubbing warmongers do not care about the deaths of our young people or the innocent people considered collateral damage. President Woodrow Wilson admitted that the war to end all wars, the war to make the world safe for democracy had, in fact, been an industrial and commercial war, which earned the United States $30 billion in World War I. The workers of the old International Workers the World (IWW), seeing it for what it is, had little desire to enter into the war. They tried to educate the working class, even Thomas Paine and Michael Bakunin, who is considered is one of the key anarchist thinkers and activists of the 19th century, tried to warn citizens. The IWW viewed ignorance as an essential collaborator in the continued smooth functioning of governments. In his “Rights of Man” Paine proclaims reason and ignoranc...