Tag Archives: labor

Nov 22 2012
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Economics, Labor and Worker Justice

The Hand That Feeds You

If you live in America and shop for your food, services and other goods in the mainstream market, then you have probably been served or helped by a low-wage worker.  If you don’t work in the low-wage world, then more than likely you have the convenience of not having to consider the sacrifice that these people make to serve your needs.

From the retail worker checking out your goods on a weekend or late in an evening, checking out your last minute the holiday eve, the person who is there to punch in the amount of your fuel at the last minute before rushing to your relative’s house for a day of relaxation and celebration. The person who hands you your sliced deli meats after you get out of work, the one who hands you a cappuccino.  Get the point?

While you, middle class person that you are, have put in your time in a regular schedule, the same shift every week, the same pay that allows you to purchase a house, a new car, finance for the kids college, yes that gives you some semblance of a future to hope for a sanity for today based on some measure of predictability, there exists an entire economy of people toiling and struggling to make ends meet, who end up on the bottom of the social ladder to serve your interests, who have no ability to negotiate anything; if they want the job they will be on the job when appointed to do so — mostly in service to your desires.

Its awfully convenient to be able to run into the toy-store two hours before official Christmas Eve to get that last toy, to rush into the convenience or grocery store to pick up a bottle of wine or something you forgot for the dinner celebration.  Its awfully convenient that someone will serve you fried eggs at 3 o’clock in the morning on a Saturday after a long night of partying with your friends, or who will be there in the brisk am on Christmas day to make sure the gas pumps are on so you can drive out of town.

Its all awfully convenient.  But at what price? Most people assume that with the degree of labor or sacrifice given, the employee has room to negotiate and bargain for better wages and working conditions; that the employee who works on a holiday, a late-night or on weekends has chosen to do so, thus we can believe in our minds that there really was no sacrifice at all.

But the fact is that more and more unskilled work is unregulated by an agency of the worker.  Bereft of union representation and the power of organization amongst themselves, most low-wage workers toil in silent rage that soon stifles down to surrender and a sense of complete powerlessness.

Nothing reminds a low-wage worker more of their position in our current economic system than the snotty, hurried middle class shopper who will complain and threaten one’s job over an imagined slight or trivial inconvenience.  Nothing reminds a low-wage worker more of their economic position than the sneer of their peers and others when one mentions working at a retail establishment or the old “You want fries with that?”.  Because of course, no one wants to be a servant and no one wants to be on the end of the social ladder.

It never really is a surprise to anyone either that jobs open to women who don’t have a college education are predominantly in the retail and service industries that pay pitifully low wages.  While non-college educated men can still regularly count on trade work which often has some level of social respect (construction) and/or union representation, most female dominant jobs do not offer union representation, good wages, benefits or even a modicum of social respect.  Instead, women and all too often, people of color of both sexes, ex-felons (even if their felony was non-violent or minor) or those with disabilities are relegated to work that often does not take into account their full potential, nor give them a chance to realize their full potential to contribute to society.  Next time you assume your convenience store clerk has maximized all their opportunities and has reached their apex, think again.

Which is why workers on all levels must stand up to support the fair representation of low-wage workers, so that hopefully the term ‘low-wage’ is one reserved for the history books and not as a relegation to poverty for millions of Americans in this country.  Which is why all middle class people, who have good jobs, who have the ability to make change in their lives and to assist change in others’ lives must step up to do so.

The following demands should be made and the middle class must be willing to step up and make clear that they can and will make the sacrifice necessary to see to it that workers are treated fairly — and more importantly, will help to demand that the plutocracy that has arisen out of the hierarchy of work in our society be gone forever!

People should demand the following as the very basic of worker’s justice:

1.  That workers be allowed the day off on major and religious holidays to spend time with their families and in their communities.

2.  That all workers be granted health insurance and life insurance benefits.

3.  That workers with families be given a regular weekly schedule that is predictable and allows them to adjust their family lives around their work.

4.  That workers be given affordable childcare — paid either by meaningful state/federal subsidies and/or with a tax on the employer.

5.  That doling out jobs and positions by gender or race identification cease immediately.

6.  That wages be pegged to a basic needs tested standard of living measure.

As a worker, especially if you do better than a low-wage worker who serves your needs:

1. Be aware of the sacrifice made economically for your low prices — that it all too often comes from the worker, not the company owners.

2. Chose to consume less and to shop during reasonable times of the day – be the proof that worker’s don’t need to occupy a store at times when most people are at home with their families.

3.  Break down human commodification by treating all workers as your equal.  No one has more value as a person than you.  Recognize your privilege.

4.  Speak out about worker justice that you understand; make an effort to learn more.

5. Support worker actions for justice.

6.  Learn to shop before holidays; spend time at home with your family and share this value with your family and friends.  Stay home on large marketed shopping days such as “Black Friday” or the day after New Year’s, do not shop stores that make their employees work on holidays or long nights or weekends.

For more reading on this topic:

Improving the Situation for Low-Wage Workers…

One in Four Workers Will be in Low-Wage Jobs…

Low Paying Jobs are Here to Stay

Down and Out

Sustainable Scheduling

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Nov 22 2012
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Economics, Labor and Worker Justice

Hostess and the Private Welfare State

From the online magazine Jacobin, Peter Frause makes a very good case for the closing of the Hostess plant.  The hype around the closing, as can be expected in an anti-union, anti-worker environment, has been trumpeted by the shareholders and top brass of the company and willingly repeated by the mainstream media, as a boondoggle created by a greedy, selfish union, but the facts tell a different story:

Hostess Brands, maker of the Twinkie, announced its liquidation today. This provoked a wave of now-more-than-everism, as both liberals and conservatives rushed to use the company’s failure as a testament to their longstanding hobbyhorses.

To the Right, of course, the end of Hostess is just another great opportunity to bash unions. Although perhaps it’s a sign of progress that even Fox News decided to soft-pedal this line, talking up the conciliatory position of the Teamsters while blaming the recalcitrance of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union for the closure. The idea that this is all about greedy unions is idiotic beyond belief, but sadly something we apparently still have to talk about. So if you don’t believe me you can go read Sarah Jaffe or Diana Reese.

A line I’m seeing from liberals, meanwhile, is that this is another case of private equity vulture capitalism ruining the American dream. Hostess Brands was under the control of a couple of hedge funds, as is the style these days. And so one line of argument is that Hostess could have been a perfectly sustainable company with good paying jobs, if only those short-sighted PE guys hadn’t showed up to loot it. A typical example of the genre is this from Laura Clawson at Daily Kos. Mark Price puts it more pithily on Twitter: “Private equity runs up debt, takes out fees and investment in capital goods declines leading to cost disadvantages.”
Read more : Hostess and the Private Welfare State

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Oct 25 2012
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International, Labor and Worker Justice

British Unions Shut Down London With Strikes – Over 700,000 March

Image from Washington Post online slideshow

Nearly 800,000 union workers in Britain converged in London on yesterday to demand that the government end its austerity measures.  Similar to other unrest in Spain, Portugal and Greece and across the Atlantic in the US last year, Britian’s workers demand an end to the distribution re arrangement policies dubbed “austerity measures” by the press and politicians.

In favor of the conglomeration of capital among elite global finance and banking interests worldwide, government worldwide have proposed cutting public social safety nets.  The obvious effort to turn the world’s workers into pools of low-wage labor has met with resistance across America and Europe and now Brit workers take their turn to be heard.  In the rally labor leaders call for a general strike.  In addition, as Real News reports, London and other EU countries have November 14th in their sights for a continent wide day of action against austerity.

The Real News has posted a video and report:

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Oct 21 2012
1 Comment
Labor and Worker Justice, Opinion

A Worker Looks In From the Outside of the ‘Labor Community’

With the latest focus on actions across the country by Wal-Mart workers, many middle class people who have the privilege of not having to work a low wage job announce their solidarity with the workers.  But their focus is narrow and their solidarity rings hollow.  Until a smaller more active union stepped up to support some of the workers who have had the courage to step up, Wal-Mart workers were and (still remain largely) the butt of classist jokes, derisive comments and dismissal by most Americans.

In fact most low-wage work has the stigma in this country of being work occupied by lower educated, slower witted persons who by their lack of the exceptional talent of their middle class betters, have failed to advance economically.  This classist attitude rings hollow in the face of the fact that as the American job pool shrinks, more and more people are forced into working low-wage jobs.  Jobs traditionally shut-off from the traditional unions.  Like a self-serving circle of hell, low-wage workers get stuck in a system where their poverty and desperation feeds an inability and fear to agitate for better wages and working conditions.  Short working hours and low hourly pay that leads to poverty existence squeezes the reserves of workers who lack the flexibility to move to other, better paying work.  Armchair libertarians and the like love to argue ad infitnitum that all workers have mobility to “take their labor else where”.  Such fantasies serve only to blame the worker, leaving better paid workers, the employer and government policies that enable working poverty off the hook.

Sorely missing from the popular perception and focus of the Wal-Mart workers’ action is the acknowledgement that similar workers struggle everyday, unnoticed and unrepresented.  The theme in American politics reflects the tacit willingness of Americans to be separated by class distinctions with signage and slogans that cry out the lame theme, “Protecting the Middle Class”, as if there exists a fear of associating with the ‘unwashed’ and the invisible class — including day laborers and those who languish on unemployment that washes them into the fast growing river of workers struggling to make ends meet with barely crumbs.

Does the American ruling class consist of middle class workers? Are not all workers struggling the same? It appears that instead of seeking to embrace all workers, the traditional labor unions have made the strategic decision to “grow” their dwindling movement only among those that fit their aged and concrete-clad vision.  All workers share the same basic struggles.  As traditional unions beg and work hard to gain support in their struggles to defend collective bargaining rights, where are these unions to defend the millions of workers who don’t work for the most hated retail chain in America?

And also, when will the American “middle class” realize that their never-ending thirst for cheap goods, cheap services and ‘lower prices’ comes at the price of people’s livelihood and standard of living?  Is it necessary to have a Wal-Mart in every town in America? Or a K-Mart? Or a Home Depot?  Has the spread of the corporate conglomerate retail market led to better wages and increased living conditions, or has it created a silent, suppressed, isolated and ever-growing sub-class? While there is much to applaud in the efforts of the Wal-Mart workers those smaller unions that have come out in support of them and other workers, the focus needs to widen to all workers.  The time has come for realization that, as the I.W.W. adage coined nearly a century ago, an injury to one is an injury to all— all workers must come together, ready to represent themselves at the table of labor in solidarity with all labor as One Big Union, united in the fight against the scourge of corporate global capitalism.

From artist Mike Flugennak: http://sinkers.org/stage/

Unfortunately the labor unions presently making up less 12% of the population naturally, have continued their isolation from many workers.  Workers in low wage jobs that larger unions have decided long ago not to organize have suffer from the  lack of union representation.  Exploitation of low wage workers has increased as the economic depression increases the labor pool and emboldens employers.  Some union organizers claim that the old ways of organizing do not work as jobs in lower wage fields tend to have a large turn-over, tend to offer little incentive for workers to remain and thus such a fluid membership base leads to instability and inability to organize long term.

This is disputable when one considers that the largest proportion of the workforce with the most direct exposure to the public is the low wage worker, whether in service jobs, healthcare or retail.  They provide the opportunity to larger trade unions to increase support for and understanding of the struggle to keep legal protected rights such as collective bargaining and (although diminishing and very limited today), the right to strike.  In exchange, formerly neglected workers should justly expect some support for their cause, where such has been historically lacking.

Diminished representation has weakened support for the union movement nationally.  As workers feel further and further distant from what many perceive as weak, disaffected or out of touch union representation, frustration within the ranks increases. Many members complain bitterly of lack of rank and file participation in meetings, apathy among members and even many members who enjoy the benefits of their union job while supporting exactly the opposite in political ideology and public policy, hypocritically assisting those who wish to undo the union and keep more workers out while benefiting from union members themselves. Ironically, union leadership and members do nothing to stop this inside sabotage while more and more workers linger on the outside looking in, unable to find a slot in increasingly unavailable union work.

Also membership reduces as well as the cost of carrying a card and paying dues while unemployed becomes prohibitive.  Unions have shrunk not only due to assaults on worker’s rights to organize and act for their betterment, but also due to attrition as a result of the dwindling union protection. Started by Ronald Reagan, the Republican and ‘New Democrats’ have unraveled protection for worker expression with only barely audible squeaks from union leadership. Sold down the river on the idea that some kind of gentleman’s agreement exists between labor and big business that they must continue to protect, big labor unions have chosen to bargain with the devil than to reach back and lend a hand to their brother and sister workers who could offer strength in their effort to finally resist big business’ assaults on labor.

The labor movement cannot survive in its current state. Dwindling membership rates and even more diminished actual power when one considers participation rates and support in current unions, has a ripple effect on all workers everywhere.  As John O’Reilly points out here, the larger unions smirk and snub workers they consider beneath them at their peril.  Only with all workers united together to fight the nihilistic and dehumanizing forces of corporate capitalism will workers succeed and together bring the living standards of all workers to enable peaceful, dignified existence.

John O’Reilly on how the labor movement talks about itself and how he interprets it as a member and organizer of the IWW.

I’ve been thinking recently about the way that the labor movement sees itself and talks about itself. Labor movement activists often talk about labor as a kind of community, a place where individuals can reach across differences and speak to each other based on a shared connection to their unions and unionism more generally. There are big, well-funded internal publications that the large unions produce which help move this discourse. But there are also independent voices which participate in this discourse. I can think of Labor Notes as an example that I’m most familiar with.

Labor Notes and magazines, blogs, or other publications like it have this particular way of speaking about the labor movement and the changes that it needs to implement that I’ve always had a lot of trouble connecting with. I like Labor Notes, I think its a useful piece that praises rank-and-file struggles and shows how the bosses and the business unions are strong and powerful but also have weaknesses. It’s the kind of publication that shows that working people can have independent publications that highlight our stories of success and explain why and when we fail with a good analysis (usually).

But I’ve always had trouble connecting with the language that LN and similar publications use to talk about the labor movement. There’s a positioning of “inside and against” that I’ve always been unable to connect with. The discourse often goes “we are the labor movement, we need to do better, we need to get better leadership and democratize our unions, we need to organize the unorganized.” I like all the reclaiming of the labor movement narrative, that’s a great step I think. Saying that “we,” being rank-and-file workers, are the labor movement and that unions are not just the union leaders, is really important. But to me as an IWW organizer, I’ve never felt part of some community of labor.

Read more: Outside the House of Labor, by Jack O’Reilly, IWW organizer, originally published in Labor Notes.

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Oct 09 2012
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Economics, International, Law

Workers Continue to Defy the EU’s Oppressive ‘Austerity’ Demands

More news that gets little to no air play in the American corporate media: Greece continues, along with other southern countries of the EU, to resist the “austerity” methods of the finance/capitalist sectors in the EU.  Flexing their muscle through the leadership of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leaders of the major finance and banking interests attempt to keep the lid on the boiling pot.  No doubt, to much consternation of the powerful elites, workers in the southern tiers demonstrate that they will not be cowed, demonstrating that an educated workforce will not accept reduction to the role of capital commodities for the benefit of plutocrats.

From Socialist World:

German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected in Greece on Tuesday, 9 October. She will be greeted by an increasing bitterness and anger against the ongoing destruction of the Greek economy and living conditions of working people. An escalation of the struggle against the latest Troika-imposed austerity is developing from below. It has the potential to bring down the Samaras government and challenge capitalist austerity. We publish here an article by Xekinima (CWI in Greece) on the latest developments and the steps which need to be taken by the workers’ movement.

Greek society is in uproar. Everybody knows that the situation cannot continue. The so-called Troika (European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) have led the Greek economy into a collapse, and are now demanding another round of savage austerity cuts.

The Samaras government of New Democracy with the participation of its fake “left” allies (DIMAR and PASOK) are preparing cuts that will lead to untold misery for millions of workers, pensioners, the poor and the unemployed.

Here are the key statistics that themselves explain the type of war that has been launched against working people:

Official unemployment stands at 23.6% (real unemployment is more like 30%) and among young people is 55%. According to the European statistical agency Eurostat (July 2012), 68% live at or under the official poverty line. Gross Domestic Product has fallen by 22% since the beginning of the crisis. The “national” debt is estimated to be 179% of GDP in 2013, according to the government’s new projected budget, while it was 109% of GDP in 2008 (’Imerisia’ newspaper, 2 October 2012).

In reality, the Greek people have no choice but to try to stop the criminal plans of the Troika leraders and that can only mean trying to bring down the government that collaborates with these criminals. The government (which at the moment faces a serious crisis as scandals are exploding) can be brought down with mass strike action, mass occupations across the country and an indefinite general strike.

Read more: Trade Unions Pushed to Escalate the Struggle

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Sep 27 2012
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Economics, Labor and Worker Justice, National Politics

The Poor and Low Wage Workers Pay More in Taxes than Romney

cartoon by David Horsey, LA Times

 

 

Article by John Funiciello published in Issue 487 of Blackcommentator.com

Once again, the Republican candidate for president has expressed his contempt for a large percentage of the American people, by claiming that they are “dependent” on government for their very lives and, therefore, will automatically vote for President Obama.

The real wealth of the nation is in its people.

Comments by the GOP standard bearer, Mitt Romney, were caught on tape in Florida last spring and released last week by Mother Jones magazine. In a matter of hours, the comments were seen by tens of millions and caused Romney to call a press conference to explain himself.

What he had said at a private fund-raising dinner was that 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax and that they are Obama’s supporters. USA Today his explanatory statement: “The president believes in what I’ve described as a government-centered society, where government plays a larger and larger role, provides for more and more of the needs of the individuals,” Romney said in Orange County, Calif. “I happen to believe instead in a free enterprise, free individual society where people pursuing their dreams are able to employ one another, build enterprises, build the strongest economy in the world.”

By now, it is clear to virtually everyone that Romney doesn’t have a clue about what real Americans’ lives are like. He certainly doesn’t know what it is like to try to stretch a $15,000 annual income and keep a family from starvation. And, he never will. In fact, living on low wages or a low fixed income is one of those weekly miracles that happen and the plight of those millions of families goes unnoticed. Out of sight, out of mind and Romney wants to keep it that way.

The rich are going to be swimming in the same pool as the rest of the country if the whole thing collapses

The GOP, as expressed by Romney in constant campaign rhetoric, wants to reduce the government, so that it never will be able to provide for that 47 percent of the electorate, which likely would never vote Republican. Only the irrational would vote for a party, the main philosophy of which is to cut taxes for the rich and corporations and cut social programs and most functions of government, except for the military and defense. But, books have been written, speculating on why average Americans, who are only one or two paychecks away from needing government assistance, continue to support the GOP platform and its philosophy. They’re out there and they do, indeed, vote Republican.

Democrats are on the horns of a dilemma. They have been subject to the same propaganda from the right wing think tanks and Corporate America for decades and have weakly fought the GOP’s efforts to diminish every function of government at every level. At the same time, they have presided from time to time over a country headed in the same direction, no matter which major party is in charge. The difference is that they don’t sing the same no-taxes-no-social-programs song that the Republicans sing.

For that alone, they have a leg up on the coming election, but this does not leave them in the clear, by any means. Many of their policies on the important issues of our time are much the same as those of the Republicans. These issues include, but are not limited to: global trade, the continuing growth of militarism, the magical vanishing manufacturing base (except for those things that are made by robots), the lack of sustainable and low-cost housing, the food system that is damaging the people’s health, the lack of an affordable universal health system, the staggering cost to students of higher education, endless war, diminishing civil rights, and the continuing assault on virtually every vital aspect of the environment. Other than that, Obama is doing better than the party of Romney.

Many of their policies on the important issues of our time are much the same as those of the Republicans.

Back in the 1980s and 90s, over-the-road big trucks had painted on them something like, “This truck pays $4,467 in road use taxes every year.” That was supposed to show everyone driving a car or pick-up that the truck bearing the sign and weighing some 80,000 pounds was paying more than its fair share to use the roads. A quick check of the “road use” taxes that a car or pick-up truck paid at the time showed that, pound for pound, the car paid about four times what those trucks paid in road use taxes and they didn’t crumble the roads to dust.

So it is with the Republicans and their insistence that the behemoths (wealthy) pay all the taxes, and that there are so many poor and low-wage Americans who pay no income taxes. (We’ll leave aside for a moment that there are giant transnational corporations that pay no taxes and lots of rich folks who pay no taxes, but that’s a subject for another discussion.) The fact is that the poor and low-income wage earners pay plenty of taxes: sales taxes, payroll taxes, gasoline taxes, excise taxes, and endlessly increasing fees for everything from driver’s licenses, to fishing licenses. Low-income Americans pay a much greater percentage of their income than the wealthy or even the middle-income earners.

Somehow, this fact of life has escaped Mitt Romney and people like him, George W. Bush and virtually his entire administration, for example. These are people who are so alienated from the lives of most Americans that they don’t know that the country’s emergency rooms are not universal health care and they are not free.

Thinkprogress.org recently noted: “For example, if you look at state and local taxes, the working poor actually pay a higher percentage of their income in these taxes (all of the other taxes and fees) in every state except for Vermont. (In) Alabama, for example, low-income families (which make less than $13,000) pay 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while those making more than $229,000 pay just 4 percent.”

And, Wealth for the Common Good also noted recently that the top 400 taxpayers (those who have more wealth than half of all Americans) pay lower taxes today than they have in about two decades. Their tax responsibilities have declined sharply in 70 years and, during that time, wage-working men and women have been asked to pay more. There was a time when lawmakers discerned a difference between those who could afford to pay taxes and those who were not able to pay taxes and occasionally, they adjusted the tax code to lighten the burden on the poor. This is not one of those times.

Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and most of the Republicans and many Democrats seem to have forgotten that the Democrats once stood for the New Deal (putting people back to work and giving them the means to maintain their living standards, through union organizing), the War on Poverty, and the Great Society.

Instead, at this time, in the midst of a presidential election campaign, the word poverty is barely mentioned. And, if the word “poor” is used, it is to call them lazy, parasites, and a drag on the economy and the national budget. There is no apparent plan from either party to deal with the severe problem of poverty in the U.S. Certainly, there is no plan for the two parties to come up with a plan, and that’s what it takes to solve the problems of a nation that owes its soul to the company store, that is China, Europe, Japan, and several other countries.

Romney doesn’t have a clue about what real Americans’ lives are like.
The right wing (in politics and Corporate America) in this country would do well to hold its tongue when criticizing any of those creditors, because it is people who look and act just like them who have removed the manufacturing base from the country to seek ever lower wages and lower “labor costs.” They are the ones, along with the people they employ in the Congress, who have caused the economic problems, with their constant push for lower taxes for the rich and corporations and the push for rewards for taking their plants out of the country. They have received all of that.

As we have seen, the working class and the middle class, however it is defined, are the ones who pay (remember, they somehow have morphed from citizens into consumers). When they lose their jobs, there’s no one left to pay. How hard is that for the politicians to understand? We’ve had a steady decline of jobs for decades, we have people in mid-life living off their retirement savings, and we have college graduates who might be able to pay off their student loans by the time they are 50 years old.

Like or not, the rich are going to be swimming in the same pool as the rest of the country if the whole thing collapses. Then, they will be seeking out people who have real skills for living, to show them how to do it. Generally, the rich are engaged in enterprises that produce nothing but money and we are beginning to realize that this money is worth about as much as the paper used for printing it.

The real wealth of the nation is in its people. When they are healthy, the nation is healthy. When the people are weakened or sick, the nation is sick. Poverty weakens and sickens a nation and the disparity in wealth in the U.S., at a level not seen in 80 years, has weakened the nation. No one in government at any level seems to be willing to proclaim the danger out loud and, so, the problem is not addressed and the nation is in deep trouble.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist,John Funiciello, is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he works with family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. To contact Mr. Funiciello, please go to BlackCommentator.com.

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Sep 20 2012
3 Comments
Economics, Education, Labor and Worker Justice

Teacher’s Unions are Like All Teh Stoopid and Who Needs Educashun Anyway?

When you post on Facebook, a blog or any other public forum, you throw out your thoughts to the public, open for debate and discussion where ever it leads.  Based on the idea that you are the baddest ass in town and you got New Ideas that everyone should know, you post a comment.
So, when someone like myself comes and stumbles upon a killer of a post, hey why not capture that and repeat it right.  What an idea.  Maybe even some feedback might be come forth in the form of some blogger who just kind of likes to set things straight and can’t believe it when they hit upon something as good as this:
I should have become a teacher instead of a millwright…Average pay of $76,000 a year for working 40 hours a week 9 months out of the year and my union demands that I strike because a 16% pay raise (to $88k a year) over 4 years plus sterling silver retirement benefits isn’t enough…I make about a $100k a year now but I work 3000 hours a year for it and my pay IS dependent on the successful performance of my job…quite unlike the collective bargaining agreement for the Chicago teachers union.
Yes, even though this Millwright is a union millwright, posting on a Union Millwright page.  So we can presume that unless he pulled himself by his bootstraps for the last 100 years, the union had something to do with his pay.Last I knew all unions use collective bargaining, no?  According to this here report straight from the horse’s mouth, Millwrights have unions that exercise collective bargaining too!
Contrary to popular myth as well, usually said about all unions, union teachers are all just as duty bound to perform their job to standards agreed upon or they are out.  Evidenced though by this person’s thought processes, I would suggest that we reduce class size, stop allowing wingnuts to screen public school textbooks,  get back to teaching science instead of superstition and earn a living wage that is commensurate with where they live and most importantly what they do.

The Chicago teacher’s union currently in the headlines and, in my opinion every single other worker’s union comprised of those who work for the government, are not legitimate unions…They should receive no support whatsoever and, in fact, should be despised, derided, refuted, shot down, and ridiculed by our respective Millwright unions…

Yes, teachers, a part of that ugly liberal cabal we know as education! Our wonderful union man even suggests shooting them down.  Wow.  And he wants his Millwright brothers to get out there and show the rest of the brotherhood how its done.  Because apparently, if you don’t need an education to make nearly $100k a year, why the hell should anyone else have one?
How many of you enjoy reading in the headlines about how the ‘Teacher’s Union and unions in general are killing America’?
Yup and its all because of teacher’s unions.  Unable to grasp the larger goal of the theme presented there; that this union is bad so that means all unions are bad, he goes for the bait and decides he’s different and he’d better join forces with the anti-union crowd and stop out all those fake unions.  Because his taxes pay his wages.  Isn’t that rich?  This is a guy whose major forms of work are public works projects or public/private partnerships, highly regulated and yes, highly needed by that particular industry at the particular time that Millwrights come in and do their work.
See this deserves pointing out since our union man can’t seem to understand that nuclear plants, gas plants, refineries all get a lot of tax dollars. Yeah, our dollars. So I guess that means that me and a bunch of teachers should come in and tell him what his stupid Millwright job is worth.
Unfortunately, you’d half to have a brain enough to think far enough and understand that there’s a similar relationship between teachers and democracy.  Highly needed for that machine to work, so you’d think they’d be highly valued and thus highly paid.  Nope.  Unlike deep thinkers like union man, who seemed to have drowned in the shallow puddle that is their mind, local governments decide teacher salaries and local governments are usually headed up by people who aren’t teachers.
NO FUCKING WAY!
Believe it, I’m telling you.  They for city offices like city counsel or alderman, or school board that are for the most part, open public sessions.
NO FUCKING WAY!
And in fact, in those cities and towns, the people can get up, get in the streets and protest that teachers are just big mooching union thugs who should be paid like the teenager who last gave you your burger order. In fact it seems like the last couple years, your people have been at it already :
Of course we see evidence of towns where all the sensible people are running the school board or city council all the time.  Which proves as always that no one needs teachers and school is just a big waste of time.
The Teacher’s unions and other unions of government workers are giving the real unions in America a black eye and a bad name…Legitimate unions work for businesses and and corporations and bargain for a fair share of the profits that company makes. Unions of teachers and other government workers have no such concern, all of their money comes out of OUR pockets in the form of taxes…
Because his taxes pay their wages.  Isn’t that rich?  This is a guy whose major forms of work are public works projects or public/private partnerships, highly regulated and yes, highly needed by that particular industry and probably the public sector at the particular time that Millwrights come in and do their work.

See this deserves pointing out since our union man can’t seem to understand that nuclear plants, gas plants, refineries all get a lot of tax dollars. Yeah, our dollars. So I guess that means that me and a bunch of teachers should come in and tell him what his stupid Millwright job is worth.

This is not how it should be…compensation as well as as reforms on hiring and firing should be decided by the public who pay their salaries NOT by renegade unions who can strike and extort more and more power and money from those who pay their salaries. If we want better teachers to school our children it should be OUR decision and we should vote on it, not the result of an act of extortion holding the education of our children hostage…

At least not held hostage by the publicly elected school boards and city government, no way, they have their hands completely tied.  Since apparently the Millwright’s union at some point got someone’s hands tied at their industry and now they’re sucking out $100k wages!  The injustice!  Why, I’m sure that with a little on-the-job training, I could build a turbine and repair it and get a second job at Wal-Mart to boot if I want some luxury like paying my light bill.
I would ask of each of you in your next union meeting to call for a vote for condemning the teacher’s union strike and for issuing a public statement that your union does not support in any way the current strike in Chicago…It will probably get shot down but what the hell..
Yes, it will probably get shot down, just the way it is on that page, because thankfully there’s some union members who got a decent education from a union paid teacher.
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Sep 20 2012
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Labor and Worker Justice, National Politics

September 19, 2006

When the Country is Broke  – Tom Glazer

Sarah Springer's avatarToday in Labor History

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Joe Glazer, known as “Labor’s Troubadour,” dies at the age of 88.  In 1979, Glazer invited fourteen other labor musicians to the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring, Maryland.  The event became an annual one:  the Great Labor Arts Exchange, which is still going strong today, under the auspices of the Labor Heritage Foundation.

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Sep 20 2012
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Economics, Labor and Worker Justice, Occupy

Sights and Sounds of a Historic Day of Protest in Portugal

The worldwide struggle continues…

fouryawkeyway's avatarIgualitárista

Estimates put the total number of anti-austerity protesters at over 660,000 people. Naturally, such a protest has captured the front pages of Portuguese newspapers. Diário de Notícias going with the headline “Outrage took to the street”:

Jornal de Noticias went with a photo of the mass protest in Porto, the other two papers showing crowds in Lisbon.

During the height of the protests in the capital, news helicopters filmed the jammed streets along the march:

Protesters assembled outside Portugal’s two largest cities. Thousands march and chanted against the IMF in Setúbal:

In Santarém, crowds chanted that the time has come for the government to go:

In Lisbon, Praça de Espanha was transformed into an expansive sea of humanity:

By night fall, thousands spontaneously gathered around the parliament in Lisbon, a small group of the crowd attempting to break past the police blocking the steps to the national assembly:

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Aug 20 2012
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Labor and Worker Justice

England IWW Cleaner’s Strike Successful

From The Third Estate Blog: (link below)

Striking Cleaners Win Victory Against John Lewis

Cleaners at the flag ship John Lewis store on Oxford Street have won a fantastic victory against job cuts and low pay. The management have now agreed to withdraw, totally, plans for mass compulsory redundancy, and to give cleaners 10% pay rise, backdated to March – following a strike by staff who had organised themselves within the IWW.

Back in late July I went down to the John Lewis store to support the strike. I must confess that I was initially unsure as to whether the workers could win: at this point only a section of cleaning staff were actually organised in the union. What impressed though was the militancy and sheer presence of the picket line. Everybody who went in – whether they were colleagues, bosses, or delivery drivers  – was compelled to properly engage with the fact that their was a strike on. Meanwhile a very deliberate effort. was made to inform the shopping public of the dispute – both at the flagship store and at John Lewis’ sister store Peter Jones. (At one point the police were called to prevent a few of us leafletting outside the latter. To their credit, the police seemed rather amused that they had been called down and explained to the manager that it was not within their remit to stop people giving out leaflets).

More here.

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