Forum Post: a big problem with unions...
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 8, 2011, 1:16 p.m. EST by wbear
(3)
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They are organized by trade and not by industry.
Consider the following excerpt from the IWW preamble (1916):
"We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which al-lows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers."
It is important to note that the dominant labor union today, the AFL, tried to break just about every strike the IWW ever organized.
What is a labor union? An organization formed by wage workers to serve their interest as wage workers.
What is the interest of the worker as a wage laborer? To secure an adequate wage, reasonable hours, and good working conditions under capitalism. To overthrow capitalism is the objective of the labor movement.
Has the worker no other interests that these? None that are not conditioned upon these.
Then the labor union has no other function than to enable the workers to regulate their jobs? None whatever. When a labor union attempts to function in any other capacity it is undertaking something foreign to its purpose, and which detracts from its usefulness as an instrument of labor.
from Historical Catechism of American Unionism, 1922 (Educational Bureau of the I. W. W.)
yes and yes.
It is about power, money, and control. The AFL-CIO has tens of billions of dollars in reserve, but are not creating jobs. The Teamsters, has $100,000,000,000.00 in reserves, that is one hundred billion dollars, and they are not creating jobs.
This money is sitting right in front of you, invested in Wall street, and yet, they say they are with us.
Think about the top of the labor unions - they are in the 1% every bit as much as crony capitalist and captured politicians - they are part of the problem - to be sure.
Ron Paul 2012