Forum Post: Economic Unions

Economic Union

Once the laboring community realizes its true power as being spiritual, in the form of a collective interdependent body, it can manifest itself as an “economic union” that gradually replaces the old labor union. The trouble with labor unions is that they could never hold a stick to the economic resources of management/owners. Over time, management learned to use their economic power to influence elections, and to lobby (and back room deal) their way into nearly every facet of government. Deregulation (as well as legislation favorable to moving whole factories abroad, or to outsourcing individual jobs, in order to gain lower labor costs and less regulation), made it easier and easier to meet their union busting agenda. Yes, at some point it became a conspiracy against labor unions. It had to, because labor unions stood in the way of maximized profit.

As American jobs were replaced with cheap labor in other countries, management’s influence grew even more. The less good-paying union jobs that were available, the less leverage the American worker and the labor unions had. More and more workers were faced with two unsavory choices; either accept nonunion jobs (and forfeit the protection of a union), or go unemployed altogether. And even in workplaces where the unionization was not yet defeated outright, the labor unions had less and less bargaining power. The weaker the labor unions became, the more economic and political ground management gained. It all became a downward spiral for labor unions.

But this downward spiral could be reversed, if only a new form of unionization—one based on economic coalitions, instead of on labor coalitions—were to be established. The new economic unions (most likely in the form of cooperatives or laborer-owned corporations) could negotiate more as an equal partner with the once-demon, opportunistic, capitalists.

The new Union can face, talk with, and come to love (see the benefit from) the demon. Not only will the Union learn the intelligent strategies it takes to tame the demon, it will learn to love its enemy. Then the demon’s heart will melt, as in the story of Beauty and the Beast. Head and heart will have come together to effect an unbelievable transformation.

The demon/beast’s purpose all along (even though the beast didn’t know it) was not to oppress, but to test the individual and collective spirit of humans. To ultimately pass the test, the collective must transcend mere resistance or fighting, and learn to see the demon-beast called management as a fallen angel who needs (and, on some deep level, actually wants) to be reintegrated into the family. Learning to shift to the higher consciousness of love and wholeness is the inward means to help bring about the family reunion, but the outward means of taming the beast by playing and beating it at its own game—the money game—will still be needed in order to make the dream come true.

Darrell