Monday, August 29, 2011
Anyone want to come along for a walk?
I'm thinking of trying to organize a "walk for peace, social and economic justice" across the Midwest starting on May Day until Election Day. Anyone want to join me?
I'm thinking of a route from northern Minnesota through Wisconsin and down through Michigan--- ending up in Chicago. Blogging as I go and asking people in YouTube videos: How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you--- with lots of meetings around kitchen tables along the way leaving behind small grassroots organizations. So, it is not only walkers who would be needed.
I kind of look at it like we are each like one little snowflake--- alone we don't amount to much. It's time for the politicians to experience a northern Minnesota blizzard.
Let's get the snowballs rolling downhill like on a warm spring day--- gathering speed and weight as they go.
Let me know if you want to help out in some way:
Phone: 218-386-2432
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
Here are the kind of ideas I would be getting out... kind of like a "Johnny Appleseed" for change---
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune---
The nation's wars are a heavy burden on the state
Article by: JACK NELSON-PALLMEYER and BILL HILTY
July 25, 2011 - 7:02 PM
Link: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126142923.html
Budget gap could have been easily closed with the money we send away.
Citizens in Minnesota are being encouraged to see scarcity as the new normal. If you are an elected official at any level of government, your job has been reduced to managing austerity.
It doesn't have to be this way -- if we address the elephant lurking in the budget deficit hall. That would be the high costs of militarization and war.
Technically, the military budget is a federal issue, distinct from state, county and city budgets. However, we can no longer maintain the fiction that distorted federal spending that prioritizes war and militarism is disconnected from state and local budget crises and is eroding living standards.
According to the nonpartisan National Priorities Project, Congress devotes 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending to war-related purposes. To better understand the impact on Minnesota of privileging military spending priorities, consider this: We have just experienced a painful government shutdown over how to deal with a two-year $5 billion shortfall. Yet Minnesota taxpayers over the same two-year period will spend $8.4 billion just for our share of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
This will bring Minnesotans' total contribution to those wars to about $36 billion. Additionally over the next two years, Minnesotans will pay $26 billion for our share of the nation's base military budget, a budget that has doubled since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Every Minnesota citizen and every layer of government is impacted negatively by current war-related priorities. Faced with pressing local needs, taxpayers in Fergus Falls will pay $17 million for their share of counterproductive Iraq/Afghan wars over the next two years; Minneapolis taxpayers will contribute $255 million.
We believe it is time for Minnesotans to communicate clearly to our members of Congress and to President Obama that federal funding priorities must shift from unnecessary wars to meeting essential needs. A new citizen-driven effort, the Minnesota Arms Spending Alternatives Project (MNasap), is a vehicle for doing so.
We have crafted a simple resolution that can be adapted and enacted by individuals, community groups, library boards, city councils and other elected bodies throughout the state. It reads in part: "Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation ... Therefore [we] call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all."
The state government shutdown has ended, but the pain will be ongoing for many Minnesotans. As a recent Star Tribune editorial ("New budget rests on shaky structure," July 20) states, borrowing against future state revenues and delaying school payments will have serious consequences, and the budget "inflicts too much pain. The hurt will be felt most keenly on college campuses and among those who serve low-income disabled and elderly people."
Imagine what we can accomplish if we stop squandering wealth and talents on militarization and counterproductive wars. Schools could reduce class sizes and have adequate supplies. Bridges could be repaired. Food shelves could be adequately stocked but rarely needed. We could take steps to make homelessness rare and temporary. Cities and states could adequately provide essential services, including meeting their authentic security needs. Critical investments could be made in infrastructure and green technologies. Public libraries could expand hours and programming. Urban and national rail systems could be built. The country could address climate change and end child poverty. All Americans could have access to quality, affordable health care.
This sounds like a fantasy only because current choices keep us on the dead-end road of militarization. It is a realistic possibility once we demilitarize priorities, realistically assess security needs and refocus governing on serving the common good.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is associate professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas. Bill Hilty, DFL-Finlayson, is a member of the Minnesota House. For information on the resolution campaign, contact MinnesotaASAP@gmail.com
Previously Pallmeyer and Hilty authored this resolution:
Resolution Calling for Re-ordering Priorities:
Whereas Minnesota is faced with a $5.028 billion budget shortfall; and,
Whereas past budget cuts have resulted in painful reductions in essential services and future cuts would further erode the quality of life for and, in fact, endanger the lives of many citizens; and,
Whereas many cities and communities in Minnesota are laying off police, firefighters, teachers and other essential employees; and,
Whereas past budgets have been balanced by cutting social services, under investment in essential infrastructure, and other measures that push the crisis onto local governments and the poor; and,
Whereas Minnesota taxpayers even during these times of economic crisis and fiscal austerity are poised to pay the equivalent of the entire state biennial budget, more than $35 billion over the next two years, for their share of the Defense Budget of the Federal government; and,
Whereas Minnesota taxpayers alone have already spent more than $27.5 billion, and will spend $8.4 billion more over the next two years for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and,
Whereas 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending is devoted to military purposes; and,
Whereas military spending priorities at the national level negatively impact budgets and quality of life at all levels of government and society; and,
Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the Legislature of the State of Minnesota call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as Congressional leadership and President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all.
Approved [date]
Drafted by Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Representative Bill Hilty.
A more comprehensive alternative I put together based on talks with people across the Great Lakes Region:
A program for real change...
* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.
* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.
* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.
* Defend and expand Social Security.
* Wall Street is our enemy.
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Demonstration in Minneapolis when Obama comes to town August 30, 2011
When: Tuesday, August 30th
Time: 9:30am
Where:
Minneapolis Convention Center
1201 2nd Avenue South
- President Obama is coming to Minneapolis to speak to the American Legion Convention.
Suggestions for protest signs:
Dump Obama!
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
W- Wasted
A- American
R- Resources
Primary Obama!
A program for real change...
* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend and expand: Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
AFL-CIO Executive Council: Fake Political Crises and Real Economic Crises - A Call for Leadership and for Action
Fake Political Crises and Real Economic Crises - A Call for Leadership and for Action
by Alan L. Maki on Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 3:13pm
"There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home."
Fake Political Crises and Real Economic Crises - A Call for Leadership and for Action
August 03, 2011
AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement
Washington, DC
The United States is in a continuing and severe jobs crisis. Our economy is growing at less than 2 percent per year, and growth is slowing. Official unemployment is 9.2 percent and rising-driven now by mass layoffs of teachers, first
responders and other public employees. The real unemployment rate is almost twice as high-once labor market dropouts and involuntary part-time work are taken into account.
It doesn't have to be this way. There are real solutions to the jobs crisis, but real solutions require government action.
Yet Washington is inexplicably focused on measures that will make the situation worse-both in the short and long run. Our nation's leaders are offering working people the choice between bad and worse policies. Instead of addressing our profound economic crisis, they are adding to it an unending series of fake political crises.
Real wages have been stagnant for three decades and are now falling. The housing market, the largest market of any kind in our country, continues its downward slide, driven by the collapse of an enormous bubble. Millions of American families have been or will be thrown out of their homes by banks, guaranteeing that this drag on our economy will continue for the foreseeable future. Our trade deficit keeps growing. We invest less and less in our nation's infrastructure while unemployment in construction is nearly double the national average. Veterans return home and struggle to find work. Our education budgets at every level are shrinking, and fewer and fewer of us have adequate health insurance or a pension.
Republican congressional leaders have made their agenda crystal clear-paralyze the government and hold our economy hostage until a multitrillion-dollar ransom is paid to their contributors in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and for multinational corporations. They will not rest until they have succeeded in dismantling the American government and the American Dream-so their wealthy contributors can be sure that their taxes will remain the lowest in the developed world for the remainder of their days.
Unfortunately, far too many Democrats have been either silent or complicit in the Republicans' scheme. We expect Democrats at every level of government to stand tall for progressive principles, working families and the American labor movement. We need their leadership-not their excuses or apologies.
But this agenda has been clear for years. The congressional Republicans are doing nothing more than escalating the Bush agenda-using the disingenuous rhetoric of fiscal responsibility to transfer wealth to the rich, dismantle the social safety net and increase the deficit. If our country is going to have a bright and fair future, we need a completely different direction-toward a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy, driven by investment in our workforce and our infrastructure, and our public services.
There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home.
Our unfair and inadequate tax system is at the heart of what is wrong with our economy and our society. Our government gives away tax breaks to billionaires and corporations while letting our infrastructure deteriorate and cutting aid for heating oil for the poor. We cannot build a competitive economy, pay our bills as a nation or address out-of-control economic inequality until we adopt a fair system of taxation.
Instead, policymakers are obsessed with cutting government spending with a meat ax-heedless of the consequences for our economy or our compassion.
In an economy beset by mass unemployment, inadequate demand, tight credit and asset deflation, massive cuts in government spending will be disastrous-particularly cuts that cause layoffs or reduce Americans' incomes, such as cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These deep cuts could easily catapult our economy straight into a double-dip recession, if not a Great Depression. And we run the risk of dragging the rest of the global economy down with us.
In an economy that runs chronic trade deficits of more than a half-trillion dollars a year and that has lost more than 50,000 manufacturing plants in the last 10 years, the last thing we should do is rush to pass more trade agreements built on the model that led to the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing-like the Korea, Colombia and Panama agreements. And we need to reform our tax code to end the incentives and rewards for offshoring jobs-not lock in a corporate tax code that only taxes U.S. earnings, essentially inviting companies to move operations offshore and placing responsible employers at a disadvantage.
In an economy where tax revenues have hit a modern low of 14.9 percent of GDP and where the wealthy have seen the greatest income gains and the lowest tax rates since the Great Depression, there is absolutely no economic rationale for cutting tax rates or continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. In an economy where real wages have been falling for a generation, why would we go all out to silence workers, deprive them of basic workplace protections, defund the agencies that protect us, interfere with those who seek to enforce the laws and cozy up to foreign governments where workers are murdered with impunity when they try to organize?
Working people do not want a kinder, gentler or more reasonable version of the policies that caused the economic crisis, that dismantled the American Dream and that have undermined our democracy for a generation. We demand a completely different approach-we want jobs, prosperity, fairness and, most of all, a future for all of us.
Today, we must fight against the destructive ideas in play in Washington and in our state capitals. That is why the labor movement's voice is clear-we oppose any cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits-no matter where they come from and that includes the Oval Office. We need a tax code that asks the rich to pay their fair share. We oppose corporate tax reform that is merely "revenue neutral" amid calls for "shared sacrifice." We oppose the Korea, Panama and the Colombia free trade agreements. And we will fight with every means we have against those who would take away the right to vote through a new generation of poll taxes and literacy tests.
But we cannot build a future by watering down bad ideas-or even by stopping them. Working people demand a politics of real solutions. Of good jobs-on the scale needed to make a difference. Of investment in our future-in our infrastructure, our health, our schools, our people. Of fair taxes and fair trade. And, most of all, a future where working people have a voice in our republic, in the workplace and the voting booth.
America wants to work, and we need a political system that will deliver on that urgent imperative. Today, real solutions are at hand, and in the months ahead, we are going to fight for them.
We will unite not only workers and our unions but a broad base of allies behind a comprehensive initiative that will invest in America, provide opportunity for all, ensure dignity through work and save our social safety net. We must build on and expand vital partnerships with women's, civil rights and minority organizations, and environmental, immigration, low-income, senior and faith groups. We also will strive to build alliances with business where possible, such as the work we have done together with a wide range of business groups to support investment in our nation's infrastructure.
We will promote a job creation agenda that will include direct federal investment as an alternative to tax cuts. A jobs agenda that will respond to the continuing high unemployment rates suffered by workers in the construction industry, the bleeding of jobs in the manufacturing sector, and the hemorrhaging of employment in the state and local government sectors. We will fight for:
- Maintaining income support and consumer spending, including extending the current federal extended benefits program for the unemployed, which expires in December;
- Rebuilding and modernizing critical national infrastructure to promote strong economic activity, including a robustly funded, multiyear Surface Transportation Act that expands our highway and bridge system and addresses the transit jobs crisis, and by creating an infrastructure bank that funds good jobs and helps rebuild our manufacturing base through standards and tools that will enhance the domestic supply chain;
- Enforcing our trade laws, fighting against China's currency manipulation to help our manufacturing base recover, and renewing a robust, long-term Trade Adjustment Assistance Act ;
- Establishing a program of countercyclical assistance to create and stabilize jobs in state and local governments, including adequate federal aid and permanent programs of direct local job creation and federal Medicaid matching rates that reflect fluctuations in unemployment rates;
-Helping the unemployed and families threatened with the loss of their homes;
-Adopting a fair tax system, including an end to tax breaks for companies going offshore and a financial transaction tax that asks those who caused the financial crisis to help pay for its consequences;
-And for every good idea that creates jobs and helps us take on the great challenge of rebuilding the American Dream.
Most of all, this is a time when everyone who cares about our future must stand together. We must organize, and we must have vision. The labor movement calls upon all who see a future for America that is better than our past to join us. It is time not for compromise but for vision, not for downsizing our dreams, but for seizing our future.
Contact: Amaya Tune (202) 637-5018
I am providing some background on what used to be the AFL-CIO position on conversion; we need to know why this work has not continued (please share this information widely):
Breaking Ranks: On Military Spending, Unions
Hear a Different Drumme:
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1352&context=articles&sei-redir=1#search=%22afl-cio%20conversion%20committee%20winpisinger%22
Newspaper article:
Newspaper article:
Winpisinger Speaks Out
An Interview with the President of the
International Association of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers
"Any conservative who thinks that this country is going to continue on the armament binge we've been on now for several years, better have another thought. The country can't afford it, we're bankrupting ourselves in every other area of our activity by these insane deficits that are generated by that kind of obscene military spending."
AFL-CIO industrial unions
call for rebuilding America
"They are restructuring our
jobs, our workplaces and our
lives. We want to construct the
framework on which to build
a political economy founded
on the values of peace and
prosperity, not war and poverty."
William Winpinsinger
William Winpinsinger
See page #3:
These should be companion volumes for this discussion:
Let's all be asking this important question:
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Elmer Benson; socialist Governor of Minnesota elected on the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party ticket. The working class can break free from the "two-party trap."
Friday, August 5, 2011
We must say "NO" to the unconstitutional "Super Congress"
We must say "NO" to the unconstitutional "Super Congress"
Please help me distribute this by turning it into a "digital leaflet" forwarding it to family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
First of all, I notice that Ron Paul is using the very legitimate unconstitutional aspect of this legislation created by Obama--- this bill creating this "Super Congress"--- very demagogically like a little Mussolini as he refuses to defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Community Action Program, funding to enforce Affirmative Action along with public housing, public education, Food Stamps, many other social programs to be cut which is a huge cut to the standard of living of the working class which is the primary target in cutting all of this as military spending is drastically increased even though Obama and these lying politicians are claiming cuts in defense spending which is an outright lie because the only thing they are doing is slightly cutting back on theirintended increases in the military budget where as the existing budgets of the social programs are actually being cut.
My suggestion is that Bernie Sanders, while often weak in many areas, should be quoted over Ron Paul.
There is a move underway by a very shrewd group of Obama supporters calling for Bernie Sanders to be appointed to this new unconstitutional "Super Congress" that is charged with but one objective: enforcing austerity measures as a way to pay for these dirty wars.
Yours in the struggle,
First of all, I notice that Ron Paul is using the very legitimate unconstitutional aspect of this legislation created by Obama--- this bill creating this "Super Congress"--- very demagogically like a little Mussolini as he refuses to defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Community Action Program, funding to enforce Affirmative Action along with public housing, public education, Food Stamps, many other social programs to be cut which is a huge cut to the standard of living of the working class which is the primary target in cutting all of this as military spending is drastically increased even though Obama and these lying politicians are claiming cuts in defense spending which is an outright lie because the only thing they are doing is slightly cutting back on theirintended increases in the military budget where as the existing budgets of the social programs are actually being cut.
My suggestion is that Bernie Sanders, while often weak in many areas, should be quoted over Ron Paul.
There is a move underway by a very shrewd group of Obama supporters calling for Bernie Sanders to be appointed to this new unconstitutional "Super Congress" that is charged with but one objective: enforcing austerity measures as a way to pay for these dirty wars.
They want Bernie Sanders as part of this "Super Congress" in order to try to give it the legitimacy it does not deserve. Bernie Sanders must be encouraged to join the battle against this "Super Congress" not to become part of it.
Second, thinking by some that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will step in here is very naive since the ACLU is nothing but a rubber-stamp front for the Democratic Party.
The ACLU did not act to challenge Obama's health care legislation which is patently unconstitutional on its very face according to the United States Supreme Court rulings upholding the New Deal legislation--- in particular Social Security.
The ACLU did not act to challenge Obama's health care legislation which is patently unconstitutional on its very face according to the United States Supreme Court rulings upholding the New Deal legislation--- in particular Social Security.
Should Obama's health care legislation now be approved as "constitutional" by the United States Supreme Court beholden to Wall Street's interests, this will be the end of Social Security as the government will then be able to coerce people to pay into individual retirement accounts as they claim the Social Security fund they looted leaving behind a stack of IOU's lacks sufficient funds to maintain the Social Security program.
We cannot wage the kind of multi-pronged struggle required that involves ending the wars and taxing the rich to fund social programs behind simple calls only attacking this "Super Congress" asunconstitutional. There is simply much more to this than that.
We need to explain to the American people that the very reason for establishing this "Super Congress" is to fund militarism and wars through austerity measures attacking the living standard of the working class while evading the need to tax-the-rich and the corporations. This is the one and only reason for this unconstitutional "Super Congress."
Our response should be to challenge this "Super Congress concocted by the Wall Street coupon clippers to escape the hindrances imposed on their rule by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights by not only challenging this in the courts but in the streets and at the ballot box. This requires a very high level of organization uniting people behind an alternative to Wall Street's agenda of expanding imperialist wars abroad financed as a direct result of growing poverty while killing jobs at home.
Obama has now delivered us one more terrible piece of Draconian, very reactionary and regressive piece of legislation which includes this abomination and perverted view of democracy that is an attack on our Constitutional rights and our standard of living not to mention the rights of peoples in other nations to be free from his dirty murderous, barbaric and cannibalistic imperialist wars and we must mention, the solid support the Israeli killing machine continues to receive from Obama and Congress compliments of U.S. tax-payers being forced to endure austerity measures that come with soaring prices for food, gas, electricity and home heating fuels, continuing foreclosures and growing unemployment.
The time has come to convene a "people's congress" with the intent of challenging Wall Street for power.
There is a clear alternative to unite the American people around:
There is a clear alternative to unite the American people around:
A program for real change...
* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.
* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.
* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.
* Wall Street is our enemy.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.
* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.
* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.
* Wall Street is our enemy.
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
We must not allow the Democrats to get away with evading the need to tax the rich like they have evaded ending these wars. What we need is a huge united movement to turn the demagogic campaign rhetoric of the Democrats into real legislation.
This requires the American people create a "people's lobby" and elect a truly "people's congress" based on the ideas of "We the people."
Yours in the struggle,
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell: 651-587-5541
Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Labor Day 2011; State of Today’s Unions
Labor Day 2011; State of Today
By Pancho Valdez
“All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms labor is treason. If a man tells you he trusts America America United States
This past Spring the nation witnessed an attack on organized labor unlike any other in the past 30 years. Public workers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Missouri, Michigan and Minnesota have been made the scapegoat of their state’s economic crisis which is as phoney as a three dollar bill given the fact that the crisis was not only caused by Wall Street, but also profited Wall Street as well. Another major factor to our nation’s economic woes that seldom is mentioned is the huge war budget wasted on the unjustified wars in Afghanistan , Iraq and now Libya
Workers belonging to such unions as the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the public sector division of the Communications Workers were the target of a well planned, vicious assault by the Tea Party and other Republican extremists using the falsehood of “balancing the state budgets”. As was shown in Wisconsin Texas
In light of a concerted attempt to weaken or destroy public sector unions we must take into account the percentage of organized workers in the private sector, which is now around a dismal 7%! With such a low number of organized workers it is very clear that the working class of the U.S. U.S. trade unions or labor laws that are seldom enforced by right wing governments friendly to the U.S. U.S.
One other major factor is the fact that today’s labor unions appear reluctant to use strikes as a means of offensive strategy. In the past decade labor strikes have averaged only 20 per year as compared to 350 per year in the 1950’s. While I have yet to see or hear any official reason from labor leaders for this decline in strikes, my guess is that the use of strikes has been put on hold due to weak enforcement of labor laws which basically give employers an open door to replace strikers with scabs ( common word describing strikebreakers). One factor that should be discussed is the mindset of “cooperation” that was prevalent in the middle 1970’s and early 1980’s. This way of thinking promoted “labor peace and harmony” as a means of settling contractual disputes. I can remember several unions that were big on this idea that included the United Steelworkers, the United Autoworkers and the Transport Workers Union , a public transit and airline industry union. This absurd policy resulted in weaker contractual gains, demoralized memberships and did not
prevent employers such as Ford, GM, United Steel, Bethlehem Steel from shutting down mills and factories in the U.S. Third World countries. At the time of this revolutionary concept labor leaders were counting on bosses not to de-certify unions, or shut down operations. It doesn't take a PhD. in Industrial Relations to see that such a lame idea puts workers at a distinct disadvantage and gives employers the signal that it’s ok to do whatever it takes to cut down labor costs! Anytime a labor organization goes into negotiations from a point of weakness, quite naturally the employer will go on the offensive and attack without mercy! In an attempt to impress upon the employers, the news media and the government that labor believed in the concept of “what’s good for GM is good for America” it weakened itself into the present day situation.
One is probably asking; why would any competent labor leader ever agree to such nonsense? The reason is quite simple. When worker’ organizations fail to see or comprehend the difference between the interests of capital and the interests of labor there will be serious errors made and grave consequences to face. This failure on the part of organized labor’s true role is the direct result of the shameful purge of communists and socialists from labor’s ranks during the McCarthy era. Without the presence of strong working class ideology organized labor opened itself up to be used and abused by the ruling class. It also gave a free ticket to social democrats to assume “leadership roles” and reward themselves to lucrative salaries for themselves, their friends and relatives. Such corruption along with mob control of many local unions of the Teamsters, International Longshoremen’s Association, some local unions of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees, the Laborers International Union and others resulted in sweetheart deals and reduced the organizations to being merely “paper tigers!” While employers prefer NO union at all, they will settle for one that is mob controlled as the workers have no democracy in these organizations. Sweetheart agreements are about as good as it’s going to get and even in local unions not corrupted by the mob, workers ownership of their unions was taken away as union leadership chose a top down approach in running their organizations. When workers have little if any control over their unions, participation is very shallow and in the event of an employer turning on its workers, the members are ill prepared for an effective and successful defense.
Today’s labor organizations have become far too dependent on utilizing attorneys,
mediators, arbitrators and administrative hearing to resolve disputes. Gone are the times when a group of workers would engage in old fashioned “get in your face” tactics. While labor and governmental bureaucrats along with attorneys are all in favor of this change of strategies, it does nothing to build a strong and militant labor movement in the U.S. Many younger workers today are reluctant to join a union not willing to fight for it’s members.
While organized labor in the U.S.
Before viable solutions to this present day situation are discussed, it is important to know that not all labor organizations fall into the above mentioned categories. In San Antonio and across the nation UNITE HERE is organizing hospitality workers and has no problem using mass picketing as well as civil disobedience to protest unsafe and unfair working conditions. Unions like the independent United Electrical Workers and the west coast International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) are examples of two left led labor organizations that also use much more militant and confrontational tactics with a great deal of success. Recently the ILWU locals in Oakland and San Francisco refused to unload cargo that was from Israel Gaza S. Africa during the struggle against apartheid. The UE is the union that got national attention when it took over a small factory in Chicago
A more recent and surprising development is the AFL-CIO participating and helping to organize May Day events across the nation. May Day was abandoned as the official Labor Day in the height of the McCarthy era to appease right wing politicians who were hell bent in destroying anyone with Left wing tendencies.
While all is not where it could or should be within the American labor movement, it has progressed since the days of George Meany who bragged that he never walked a picket line! Meany was also against racial equality and a big proponent of the Vietnam war.
There are solutions to help improve the situation within the labor movement which would include assuring that all affiliated local unions are democratic whereby workers have the right to approve or disapprove contractual agreements. Workers should also have the right to run reform candidates without fear of beatings, killings, expulsion from their union and retaliation from their employers.
Another major reform idea would be for the labor movement to seriously begin working on organizing and building a worker based political party as a viable alternative to the Democratic or Republican parties. This party would include civil rights, civil liberty, environmental, gay and lesbian, peace activists and others who feel disenfranchised from the electoral system as both major parties are controlled by corporate bribes disguised as “campaign donations.” An important factor of this new party would be full support and adherence to our nation’s Constitution.
Another change would be for organized labor to depend less on federal agencies, attorneys, arbitrators and mediators to resolve disputes. Adoption of the proven and far more militant tactics of the CIO are in definite order. Laws and regulations designed solely to protect the interests of the bosses should be ignored and broken whenever possible. A union that is afraid to fight is a union that does not deserve to collect dues from its members!
A step in this direction will help make the U.S.
-Pancho Valdez is a member of Laborers Local 1095 and has been active in the movement for justice since 1965. He can be reached at: 210-882-2230 or mestizowarrior210@yahoo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)