We've seen once again (this time from the Occupy movements) that politics is about far more than elections. I believe we will never again see a vibrant middle class in this nation unless we have strong unions. It's not the 19th century or 1930s anymore, but one thing that is constant is that the investor class will fuck working people to increase their share of the money created by any enterprise. Put simply, class struggle is always part of a capitalist economy. When workers (and most of us are) don't organize and don't fight back, we get screwed and the investor class takes and takes and takes, impovrishing the 99%.
The Great Class Stratification of the last 30 years ought to be sufficient empirical evidence for anyone with an open mind.
Today brings news of perhaps the most important organizing campaign since the 1930s.
The United Auto Workers union is staking its future on the kind of struggle it hasn't waged since the 1930s: a massive drive to organize hostile factories.
This time, the target is foreign car makers, whose workers have rebuffed the union repeatedly. Specifically, Reuters has learned, the union is going after U.S. plants owned by German manufacturers Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG, seen as easier nuts to crack than the Japanese and South Koreans.
msnbc.com (quoting Reuters)
Key to this effort is the help of unions overseas, specifically German unions:
In dozens of interviews with union officials, organizers and car company executives, a picture has emerged of UAW President Bob King's strategy. By appealing to German unions for help and by calling on the companies to do the right thing, King hopes to get VW and Daimler to surrender without a fight and let the union make its case directly to workers.
Central to this effort is the belief that if car companies refrain from actively opposing a UAW organizing push, workers at German-American factories will gladly join the union.
snip
"The German companies have a better history of recognizing workers' rights around the world," King said.
msnbc.com (quoting Reuters)
Last year, Republican senator Bob Corker tried to prevent unionization even though the German workers for Volkswagen have strong unions. Corker wants Americans to be second class, without rights. It is people like Corker who betrayed America and Americans to an international investment class. And, yes, Corker is the one who wanted the American auto industry to fail, fighting the assistance given by the Obama adminstration to GM and Chryler, both of which are now creating new jobs in America.
Nov. 28, 2010
By Andy Sher
Chattanooga Times Free Press
NASHVILLE -- U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., says he has told Volkswagen officials
that he thinks it would be "highly detrimental" to the German manufacturer if the United Auto Workers organizes its Chattanooga assembly plant.
"I was asked to give input, and I did," Corker said.
http://uawsolidweb.org/...
I don't know how we can help this effort, but I think folks at Daily Kos should in any way possible. This is as important or even more important than many elections. Yes, we need to elect better Democrats. But we also need to make change outside of electoral politics.
Solidarity is the only way.
I'm a proud son of a man who was a member of the United Auto Workers. The UAW did much to make the modern middle class, a middle class that is now disappearing. I grew up reading the Solidarity newspapaer of the UAW when Walter Reuther was still alive.
A voice for all
As impressive as it is, the UAW's success record at the bargaining table is only part of the story. From our earliest days, the UAW has been a leader in the struggle to secure economic and social justice for all people. The UAW has been actively involved in every civil rights legislative battle since the 1950s, including the campaigns to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 and legislation to prohibit discrimination against women, the elderly and people with disabilities.
The UAW also has played a vital role in passing such landmark legislation as Medicare and Medicaid, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Employee Retirement Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
In Washington and state capitols, the UAW is fighting for better schools for kids, secure health care and pensions for retirees, clean air and water, tougher workplace health and safety standards, stronger worker's compensation and unemployment insurance laws and fairer taxes.
The UAW's commitment to improve the lives of working men and women extends beyond our borders to encompass people around the globe. Through vigilant political involvement and coordination with world labor organizations, we continue to fight for enforcement of trade agreement provisions on human and worker rights, fair labor standards and a new approach to international trade — one that raises the quality of life for working people worldwide.
http://www.uaw.org/
"Solidarity Forever" was written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915. It is perhaps the second most famous union anthem after "The Internationale".
Since the 1970s women have added verses to "Solidarity Forever" to reflect their concerns as union members. One popular set of stanzas is:
We're the women of the union and we sure know how to fight.
We'll fight for women's issues and we'll fight for women's rights.
A woman's work is never done from morning until night.
Women make the union strong!
(Chorus)
It is we who wash dishes, scrub the floors and clean the dirt,
Feed the kids and send them off to school - and then we go to work,
Where we work for half men's wages for a boss who likes to flirt.
But the union makes us strong!
(Chorus)