It´s Not Just Others that are Protesting

Food prices and unemployment are rising. This coupled with the assault on the common man, those in the lower and middle class, by the Wisconsin government  and Maine´s government have begun a people´s protest.
....But unions are right to be worried. Declining membership, being squeezed out of the private sector, and anti-union attitudes have all contributed to the labor movement's deterioration since the McCarthyist 50s, but particularly since the Reagan era. A blow like Wisconsin could never have been struck without the last 40 years of the slow debilitation of the unions after the incredible build-up of the workers' movement in the first half of the 20th century.

The corporations have been fighting a century long war of attrition, while we organizers have been either too-focused on the day-to-day, too-focused on the distant Revolution, or too willing to believe the myth of our own weakness.

The economy is but one indication that the current system hangs by but a thread. The environment is another. It's time we realized our own potential, our own power, and took advantage of the perpetual crisis to make a lasting change through overcoming--or at least balancing out--the over-concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few and redistributing them among the many.

Look around you. All is not right, all is not equal. Stop the wars! stop the war on workers!

Even children understand equal and fair. It is only when we ¨grow up¨ that we tend to rationalize why things are not fair. Why our brothers and neighbors have less or more. They don´t work hard enough, they are not smart enough. Or they are rich because they worked hard or perhaps are ¨self-made¨.  Nothing happens by it self, the CEOS of any business are nothing without the worker, the labor. The amusement park does not run without the ticket taker, computers are not made by fairies, on and on. Even Henry Ford knew if he did not pay his workers a fair wage they would not be able to buy the same cars they were making.

¨.....Although the Model T had made Henry Ford rich and famous, he continued to advocate for the masses. In 1914, Ford instituted a $5 a day pay rate for his workers, which was nearly double what workers were paid in other auto factories. Ford believed that by raising the workers' pay, the workers would be happier (and faster) on the job, their wives could stay home to care for the family, and the workers were more likely to stay with the Ford Motor Company (leading to less down-time for training new workers). Ford also created a sociological department in the factory that would examine workers' lives and try to make it better. Since he believed he knew what was best for his workers, Henry was very much against unions.¨

Solidarity!

When Capitalism goes unchecked....A lesson in History

Originally posted in the WSWS, this is a lesson we all can understand. Never forget that the want of money can lead many people to the disregard of others. This is again happening. Unions are why you have your children in school and not working beside you in the factory or fish house. They are why you have a forty hour work week and some safety in the workplace. Much suffering and many deaths were caused by those that profited from the toil and sweat of the workers. Route out the infiltrators in the unions , take back the union for the worker and support others when they need it.

100 years ago: Triangle fire kills 146 in New York City

Tenth floor of Asch building after Triangle fire

On March 25, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, which was located on the eight, ninth, and tenth, and eleventh floors of the Asch building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Before the blaze could be brought under control 146 garment workers died, most of them Jewish and Italian girls and young women.

The disaster, one of the worst in the history of US industry, illustrated in the most horrific fashion the brutality of American capitalism. The women, whose wages were not enough to support a family and were typically handed over to parents, worked in appalling conditions.

Their workplace was littered with the flammable cotton refuse used to make shirtwaists          (women’s blouses). To control “worker theft,” factory owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris had factory doors locked from the outside; in the aftermath of the fire, charred bodies were found grouped together around these still-locked doors. The fire department of New York, the largest and most advanced city in the US, had no means of reaching the women screaming for help from the high rise factory. This resulted in dozens of women jumping to their deaths to avoid the flames.

A court acquitted Blanck and Harris of all wrong-doing that year, and a later civil settlement resulted in just $75 payment to the families of each dead worker. Taking into account a sizable insurance settlement, the owners actually gained money as a result of the tragedy.

It is often claimed that the Triangle fire encouraged the advance of reform in the US, and especially in New York. While this is undoubtedly true, the main impetus to reform was the threat posed by the growing militancy and radicalism of the workers. The garment industry was home to some of the first large industrial unions in the US. One of these, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, had in 1909 been at the head of the “Uprising of the 20,000,” largely immigrant garment workers in New York City. At the same time, socialism was exerting a profound and growing influence among New York’s immigrant workers.



For many more photos go to Cornell University

 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="366" caption="Fire fighters arrived at the Asch Building soon after the alarm was sounded but ladders only reached the sixth floor and the high pressure pumps of the day could not raise the water pressure needed to extinguish the flames on the highest floors of the ten-story building. In this fireproof factory, 146 young men, women, and children lost their lives, and many others were seriously injured. Photographer: unknown, March 25, 1911"][/caption]

A police officer and others with the broken bodies of Triangle fire victims at their feet, look up in shock at workers poised to jump from the upper floors of the burning Asch Building. The anguish and gruesome deaths of workers was witnessed firsthand by many people living or walking near the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place. Others read about it in the many newspaper reports circulated during the following days and weeks, bringing the conditions of garment worker into public scrutiny as it had been during the shirtwaist strike of 1909. Photographer: Brown Brothers, March 25, 1911

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="650" caption="After the Triangle factory fire was extinguished, broken bodies, hoses, buckets, and debris around the building testify to the extent of the struggle and the scale of the tragedy. Photographer: unknown, March 25, 1911 "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="650" caption="International Ladies Garment Workers Union Local 25 began the strike with $10 in their treasury. A special edition of the city's Socialist paper, The New York Call, told the story of the strike in English, Italian and Yiddish. Copies were donated to local 25 by the publisher and sold by union members to raise money for strike expenses. Photographer: unknown, December 1909"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="605" caption="Shirtwaist strikers march in snowy streets, often without warm clothes or sturdy shoes. Photographer: unknown, ca. 1910 "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="650" caption="Women who were arrested on the picket lines and sent to Blackwell’s Island wear “Workhouse Prisoner” signs claiming their service with pride, and were cheered by other strikers and supporters. Photographer: unknown, ca. 1910 "][/caption]

Is it wrong to want food for your family? Is it wrong to want a roof over your head? A warm dry place for your children to rest?  From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Then and now it is a fight! Never let the mind of the oppressors rest.