I wrote this little 1 page newsletter for a breakroom table campaign for my own unorganized workplace. I offer it for anyone who would llke to use it, although please do be advised that I can't promise it will not result in your getting fired as so many have for merely saying the word union in recent years. Still, change does not come without sacrifice. Maybe more of us need to be fired. The tides of history are finally with us at least. It is time. Sometimes it just takes courage.
I will be posting follow up issues covering a number of Labor/Worker related isssues over the coming weeks and months.
WHY UNIONS?
Volume 1 Issue 1 April 2009
So Who is Responsible for this Current Economic Mess?
Let us All Look Squarely in the Mirror.
Ok...I know. You are all saying, "I didn’t do this. What about Lehman Brothers and A.I.G., and all the others like them? My little 401K has been massacred like everyone else’s. I have done nothing but go to work everyday and done the best that I could for my company. Yeah, maybe some of us did overextend ourselves a bit in our personal finances, but we were chasing that "American Dream" of unbridled consumerism that Business has bombarded us with in countless media advertising campaigns since we were little children. We just wanted our piece of the pie."
I agree. But this is not the critical failure for which we all need to take responsibility.
Unlike the Greatest Generation, or even the Baby Boomers, we "Generation Xers" have not done our part to keep Business in line. We bought into the whole "me" obsession of the Regan era and we sought to cut our own little deals, usually at the expense of our co-workers. We lost our sense of solidarity with fellow workers. As long as we got ours, we didn’t worry too much about others, or the obscene amount of financial looting that was going on at the top.
But now this culture of "me", and its associated culture of corporate greed, has all but destroyed capitalism itself. Millions and millions of people currently find themselves in times of severe economic desperation. We are learning very painfully exactly why Unions are necessary,
We, American workers, have failed to control the ridiculous compensation packages of corporate executives.....and the egos and arrogance that comes with them. We could have come together to bargain collectively and fought to put that money in our own pockets where it would have contributed to the general economy. Instead, we have allowed Big Business....the banks, insurance companies, and all sorts of corporations...to steal thousands of dollars of annual income from the average American family over the past decade..
We have allowed a $4 Billion dollar union busting industry to grow up with the specific intention of driving Unions out of America and of lowering the standard of living of our People to that of India or China in order to achieve their vision of "globalization". This Union busting industry is composed of unscrupulous attorneys in about 2500 law firms who regularly advise their corporate clients to break the National Labor Relations Act, the law giving most workers the right to organize themselves into Unions to bargain collectively to improve worker’s lives.
This too is our responsibility, for the political leaders we have elected over the past 28 years have mostly been anti-union and blindly pro-business. Their political actions, and inactions, have allowed the assault on Organized Labor and Worker Rights that has occurred. Now the tide seems to have turned for the moment, but the struggle to regain what we have lost and to gain control over our own economic futures will likely be a long and hard fought one. For now there is one thing we can all do:
Vote UNION, YES.....not merely when an organizing campaign come to your workplace, but also in every single political election of the future. Come on, folks. Let’s give our kids a chance.