M Health Fairview Institutes "Sick Time Debt" While Pandemic Escalates

In a draconian maneuver relating to nurse paid sick time, M Health Fairview, one of the largest hospital systems in Minnesota, announced that sick employees, “…will be allowed to borrow up to 80 hours of PTO (Paid Time Off) from future accruals”. The email, sent out on Saturday, March 14, creates a policy for nurses exceeding their sick so that they can opt to go into a sick pay debt. Future sick pay, earned by nurses and dependent on their hour of work would be taken back from them. 

Front- line health care workers are paid a fraction of the seven figure salaries of hospital CEOs and other ancillary upper management. (There has been no announcements of payouts to management at this time.) Nurses share almost no significant decision making power in health care and at same time are shouldering the enormous burden of care giving during the pandemic COVID 19. All are risking infection, and some, due to age and medical conditions are risking death.

As the pandemic unfolds, RNs have been comprehensively prohibited from the critical decision -making discussions related to staffing, personal protective equipment, and policy. Systemically, the demands and desperate requirements of nurses have been ignored as the COVID 19 virus spreads across the continent. They are being directed to work under worsening and more dangerous condition with inadequate personal protective equipment.

 We Do The Work spoke with the “Communications team” member Maria, who would not give her last name, on the night of Saturday, March 14. Maria stated that she, “…is not permitted to divulge” M Health Fairview decisions and stated, “I want to make sure we are off the record”. WDTW neither offered nor agreed to this request. Following is the email.

 Imagine the real suggestion on this policy and the distance between its promoter and the realities of nurses across the M Fairview Health system. Knowing that medical workers walking into every aspect of health care today are risking their own safety and carrying the potential to bring viral contamination home to their families, are doing so willingly and at a time of critical public need, are being forced into sick time debt should they be harmed or contaminated in the process. 

These are the people that take care of our families and M Health Fairview, returning to their bottom line, is instituting a new debt policy for the most important workforce in the nation today. 

We Do The Work thanks the incalculable efforts of nurses, doctors, EMT’s MAs, LPNs, housekeepers, maintenance workers, and all other people running the care centers that are doing their best to save lives today. 

Please keep your stories and information coming.

For more information or to give a personal statement please call M Health Fairview and ask for CEO James Hereford. After ongoing attempts to contact Hereford, we have not been successful.

*** We Do The Work is a unionized, worker-run media group. If you would like to submit a story, information or questions, place message us on FB or email us at: ContactWDTW@gmail.com All sources of information remain protected.  Like our stuff? Hit the donate button for a $5/month donation or more. We are all out of pocket and would love your help!

CEO Health Care, St Paul Minnesota: Bethesda Cuts Beds, St Joe's Hospital Threatened With Closure

On February 10th, 2002, CEO James Hereford of M Health Fairview cut closed dozens of hospital beds and laid off scores of union nurses. Claiming a $40 million budget deficit, Fairview is also discussing the possible closure of St Joseph's Hospital entirely. With a Democratic majority in City government and the 20,000 member strong Minnesota Nurses Association, how does privatized health care square off against the needs of staff and an entire working class community?

We Do The Work begins the story and asks, "Can we turn a negotiated surrender into a real movement?" Join us as we turn worker run media on CEO James Hereford and talk to the workers, the community, politicians and union leadership.

The Battle Against Wage Cuts: We Do The Work Versus The Sisters of Charity Hospital Administration

In the spring of 2018, the lowest paid workers within Colorado’s Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth (SCL) hospitals received a professionally designed communication announcing some grim news. Shift differential, a major factor in determining hourly wages and income, was to be slashed by hospital administration. Citing a vague “Market study” sponsored by management, top-earning executives had concluded that a spectrum of frontline health care workers were getting paid too much.

Pay cuts to low-earning health care workers are devastating. Alongside substandard benefits, wages for emergency medical technicians, CNAs and patient transporters are already insufficient to cover the cost of living on Colorado’s front range. Skyrocketing housing prices, increasing medical costs, insecure retirement, and any number of unforeseen expenses are ongoing stressors for most. None of this factored into the “market survey” conducted by the SCL upper management.

We Do The Work’s Eddie Asher, a prior EMT of SCL Lutheran Medical Center and Cliff Willmeng, an RN who had worked at both Lutheran and SCL Good Samaritan Medical Center, began an investigation into the wage cuts. Obtaining company communications, WDTW uncovered the process and expectations of the upper management. The workers were supposed to roll over and accept that the health care giant simply could not afford to pay them a living wage.

The tax forms of SCL, obtained by WDTW showed that the belt-tightening measures promoted by upper management, were only falling on the lowest paid workers. The executives were exempt from pay cuts and were even receiving enormous raises. Some were making over seven figures.

Eddie Asher contacted upper management to get a transparent reaction to these facts. The CEOs were not used to this at all. Due to the nonunion culture of SCL workplaces, maneuvers hurting the bottom line workers were typically conducted away from the public eye and without any transparency or accountability at all. Like those prior maneuvers, the pay cuts were supposed to play out the same.

They didn’t play out the same.

Upper management avoided all contact with We Do The Work. Shortly after word of the investigation began to spread, managers learned of the WDTW Facebook page and discovered employee followers of the worker run media. This increased the attention the story received. Things were not looking good for administration.

Within several weeks a shift in plans emerged. All of the wage cuts for existing employees were removed. SCL emails obtained by We Do The Work showed the cuts were suddenly being withdrawn. Management acted as if they’d found a $20 dollar bill in the clothes dryer and that the cuts were no longer necessary. They were triumphant in the announcement and even went further to provide an explanation; upper management had heard the voice of the workers and had acted swiftly to champion the end of the cuts! Yes, the same group that had communicated the need to end shift differential were now taking credit for ending the plan. 

Administration followed the announcement by requesting hospital employees complete a survey. The survey was part of the hospital system’s application to the Denver Business Journal’s 2018 Best Places to Work. Yes, you heard that right. 

The defeat of the wage cuts was a first-time victory for We Do The Work and the front line fighters in the nonunion hospitals of Colorado. Combined, we were able to take the offensive and turn the back the pressure back on upper management. They were not used to this. After attempting to avoid the issue, they ultimately capitulated, and the wage cuts were eliminated for everyone except new employees. With more organizing and a mobilized workforce we could possibly have defeated the cuts for new employees as well and maybe even been able to demand raises for all. 

For all of this, WDTW would like to extend our thanks to the working people at SCL, and for being there on the front line when we, or our family members, are in need. Let’s take this example of worker run journalism and rank and file resistance to work places all over the country. There is no telling what we might win. 

We Do The Work Joins UFCW Local 7, Becomes Union Media

We Do The Work has affiliated with Colorado largest union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7. We Do The Work’s Board of Editors began dues-paying union membership January 1, 2020 and are now rank and file members of the 22,000 member amalgamated labor body, who represents grocery workers, meat packers, medical workers and others.

The stories, videos, imagery and content of We Do The Work will be union made going forward. 

“I am honored to be part of WDTW. There needs to be a change in the way the world is operating. We need a true union leadership more now than since the beginning of the labor movement. We need to educate people. We need accountability from corporations and politicians. Together with UFCW Local 7, I feel that we can begin a real movement.”

- Walter Paluch, Machinist, International Association of Machinists Local 126, Chicago IL. \

Cliff Willmeng, Board member and We Do The Work cofounder, was a member of Local 7 prior to moving from Colorado to Minnesota. He was a union steward and a Vice President on the Executive Board as an RN. The rank and file composition of Local 7’s executive board helped to influence the decision to affiliate, along with help from UFCW Organizer Director, Randy Tiffey.

“I am proud to announce our new UFCW Local #7 members from “We Do The Work.” They are a group of video editors who cover pro-worker, pro-labor issues and pro-worker causes. We are excited to have them and look forward to working together with them. Welcome and Sisters Brothers to our UFCW Local 7 Family!”

We Do The Work is thankful for all of the efforts of UFCW Local 7 and proud to join the effort to fight for union members everywhere. 

I’ll Tell You Why the 99% Isn’t In Revolt

Well known political commentator and activist Ralph Nader was recently featured in a Truthdig article titled, “Why Aren’t the 99% Revolting?”. The points made in the article sharply illustrate the scale of growing crisis and conflict across the US and globally. It covered issues as wide ranging as medical care, climate change, and the titanic disparity of global wealth distribution. It concluded with the following, hollow statement. “I could go on and on. Pick up the pace, readers. Senator Elizabeth Warren has correctly called for “big structural changes.” https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ralph-nader-why-isnt-the-99-percent-revolting/

Of course, we are all asking ourselves the same thing. How bad does it have to get before widespread rebellion? How many unarmed people of color will be gunned down by police? How many civil rights are going to be stripped? How rich can the elites get off of our labor? How much pain do we all need to feel before we rise up? It’s a natural question to ask by anyone suffering the nature of US capitalism. Unfortunately, Nader’s article rings tone-deaf. Like so many liberal arguments, it places the burden of rebellion on working class people while ignoring the mechanisms that kill revolt wherever and whenever it threatens to spark into life.

Although the elements that prevent substantial rebellion are many, they really boil down to just three. They are the not for profit industry, the antiquated strategies of what is currently mislabeled as, “The union movement”, and the Democratic Party. These three elements, all loyal to each other and working in unison, act as the front-line protective mechanism for US capitalism and the political class that serves it.

Many of you will be tempted to flail at this stage of the discussion. Aren’t the Republicans so much worse? Why would anyone attack the forces that are on our side after all they have done, even if they have some traits we may disagree with? The answer is quite simple. These forces are not allied with the types of changes our world desperately needs. They are not there to build, nor even prepare the ground for those types of changes. They act, instead, as the professional brokers of negotiated surrender for communities, work forces, and the environment. They are not building movements; they are preventing them.

What is a Movement?

What is a movement anyway? We hear the term tossed about as often as references to Martin Luther King Jr in every venue from the election of politicians to online petitioning. Although movements have changed the course of US politics for centuries, the essential qualities of movements are nearly forgotten today. In the 50 years that have passed since the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960’s, the definition of “movement” has become the possession of the same institutions that have been most consistent in keeping new movements from forming.

Let’s look at some basic qualities of movements throughout history:

1. Although movements may build their own leadership, they do not look for change to come from above. Instead, movements build politically independent power from below.

2. Movements understand that injustice is not an accidental or coincidental outcome of the political system, but the system working according to design.

3. All movements, recognizing the systemic nature of the problem, will organize ways to break the rules of that system, not simply appeal to it.

4. Through building independent political power and organized mass disobedience, movements force the system to do things it was otherwise unwilling to do.

All of these qualities, synonymous with victories and grassroots power historically, are omitted from the dominant and promoted activism of today. Let’s take a look at who is writing the current narrative.

The Not For Profit Industrial Complex

Alongside any injustice taking place nationally, a cottage industry of professional activists and organizations arises. This occurs as soon as any outrage, protest, or other grassroots formation builds to the point of exerting even a minor amount of uncontrolled political power. As soon as sufficient people and attention are involved, not for profit organizations will be dispatched to commandeer, tame, and control the process. The not for profits are funded by foundations, dark money donors, or otherwise politically connected individuals. It’s easy to see why communities or other efforts fall into their influence. They have staff, networks, and resources that we don’t normally possess at the grassroots level. But in the end, they will lead people into the predictable forms of activism that have been the hallmark of the last 50 years of retreat before Wall Street and Washington D.C. The not for profits help you feel better about negotiating the terms of your defeat. They will not lead an effort, however, that threatens the political and economic elites in any meaningful way.

The Union Leadership

The US working class has been on a downward spiral for generations. Once a power that shook the ground and terrified the rich, and sent their politicians scrambling for ways to save US capitalism, the unions have seen decades of defeated strikes and retreat. Today, despite historic popularity, unions continue to lose strikes and membership, all the while handing hundreds of millions of dollars of hard-earned dues money over to politicians. What happened to the thunderous power of the labor movement? Was this what rank and file workers wanted?

After record setting strikes in the 1930’s and 1940’s, US financial interests were able to gain dominant influence within union leadership. Throughout the 1950’s revolutionaries were expelled from locals as the labor bureaucracy strengthened its ties and acceptance of the generalized dominance of the rich and powerful. The unions became a force that negotiated better conditions of exploitation and traded their power for a comfortable relationship with the bosses and political class. It became so dominant of a strategy that union officials coined the Orwellian term, the “Team Concept”, which promotes the idea that CEOs and workers can overcome their opposing interests and work together. It has meant ruin for the American working class and an unparalleled a race to the bottom for workers globally.

Today the strategies of major victory are all carefully avoided within the union hierarchy. Even when places like Puerto Rico show definitively the effectiveness of efforts like a general strike, any discussion around such an idea is opposed by union leaders in the US. Why? Because it would risk the relationship of the union leaders and the owners of industry and government.

The result is that 13 million union members, who could collectively bring the functioning of the largest capitalist economy to a halt, have been reduced to scripted measures and political spectatorship.

The Democratic Party

All resources, assets, time, labor, money, ideas, organizing and initiative are offered to and consumed by this dominant organization of US business interests. The Democratic Party, we are informed, is the alpha and omega of our efforts to organize for justice. The power of the Democratic Party is so accepted that conventional activism has come to mean a simplified lobby effort aimed to influence their operations or talking points. No movement in history started out with the hope that electing the right politicians would save us. No movement ever exploded onto the world stage with the position that powerful interests were open to moral persuasion. But this is the promoted conclusion and focus leveraged upon all grassroots formulations.

When we accept this conclusion, that we can’t build a movement independent of the Democratic or Republican parties, by what force do we expect that they will change? And, even more, if we accept that the Democratic Party is our only political path forward, what specifically are the costs of maintaining that relationship? Given the nature of the Democratic Party, its owners, its ability to co-opt and control entire populations, what is the opportunity cost to staying within its good graces? It can only be one thing: The disarming of our power and any real threat of revolt. That is the price to ride.

The consequences of this are not academic nor intellectual. Simply look at the state of the environment, the conditions in any major city, the US prison population, the decline of the working class, the wars, systemic racism, poverty and deepening crisis everywhere and you will see the objective consequences of a people outsourcing our power to politicians.

The potential for forceful and effective revolt will be defined by its relationship to these three political forces. The more ties that exist between threatened rebellion and these forces, the more predictable and inert that rebellion will become.

Is There Any Other Way Forward?

Yes. Organized revolt has built occupations, urban insurrections, general strikes, and formed politically independent organization throughout history. The labor movement, the abolitionists, and the civil rights struggles all created political power sufficient to throw the system onto its heels and compel deep changes to government and industry. The examples aren’t confined to history either. In places like Kentucky and Virginia, rank and file teachers defied all convention and organized statewide strikes resulting in historic wage increases. Within the last five years rebellion against racism and police brutality erupted in cities after the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson. Standing Rock saw a historic assembly of First Nations to protect the water of the Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline. Just this year a general strike in Puerto Rico removed Gov. Ricardo Rosselló from power. And let’s not forget that the work stoppage of rank and file airline attendants that defeated Trump’s attempt to keep the US government closed. It took all of 48 hours for that victory.

In every moment throughout history, forces from below threaten to find expression. It means they system has had to develop elaborate mechanisms to keep these forces in check, predictable, and historically inert. The role of regular people then, the working class, has to be to recognize how we are being maneuvered and by whom, and to overcome those mechanisms so we can build something powerful, independent, and existentially threatening to the old order. If we can achieve that, revolt is only a moment away. And when it happens, it will rise to the level of the crisis that compelled it.

References:

Ralph Nader: Why Isn’t the 99% Revolting?

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ralph-nader-why-isnt-the-99-percent-revolting/

The Fight For $15 And Why That CEO Is More Hardworking Than You

We’re back! I’m not sure if we’re any more eloquent, but we’re sure as hell just as pissed! In this next podcast episode we’ll delve into the fight for $15, and it’s common arguments.  I figured, as a prelude, a blog post outlining it all might do a bit of good.  Please leave a comment, we’re recording tomorrow and would like your input!  Below you’ll find a few of the arguments against a $15 minimum wage, followed by my opinions.

-This is one of the critics’ many go-to arguments: Raise wages, they say, and businesses will have to raise prices to maintain their profits. It seemed like an uncontroversial claim; even supporters of the Fight for $15 said they would be willing to pay a bit more to give workers a living wage.

                There are a few things going on here. I’d like to point out the question of who “deserves” to pay or be paid?  Someone might argue that it’s a burden on them to have to pay more for a gallon of milk just because someone thinks they deserve $15/hr.  As in, they don’t deserve to be forced to pay more for milk, while the person supplying the milk does not deserve a wage above a certain point (the point of which enables someone to buy cheap milk).  In our society people see themselves as entitled to certain things, and they are, at least to certain things.  One of the fallacies in the above argument is that folks see themselves as entitled to pay the lowest possible price from a thing (simply by virtue of their station in this society), while folks who provide those most valuable things are not granted the same latitude with regards to livable wages.  How does this make sense?  It’s a violation of my “rights” to see my gallon of milk increase in price by 40 cents, but it’s not a violation of any type of “rights” to exploit the person providing the milk for the lowest possible wage.  I feel like I’m repeating myself. Perhaps we should shift the argument form who deserves what to who does not deserve.  We’re over here squabbling over the 40 cent increase in milk when the owner of the milk company is making $100 for every $1 paid to the people.  “But he worked so hard for his $900k/year salary”.  Maybe, but without the workers whom he’s paying slave wages, would any of his “hard work” mean anything? This CEO can have all the great marketing or business ideas in the world, but without someone physically putting the milk on the shelf, this CEO has nothing more than an idea. 

-Minimum wage hikes reduce employment levels.

                Researchers at the University of Washington have found this not to be true.  Specifically, in Washington, variance in employment levels which have been falsely attributed to the change in minimum wage laws, can actually be correlated to the natural variance of seasonal employment.  However, let’s keep it layman and maybe even anecdotal (because as far as I know, most working class are PhD’s in paying fucking rent, not economics).  This argument suggests that an employer is so financially burdened by the prospect of paying its employees a livable wage, that said employer has no choice but to hire fewer workers.

                Now, I’ve been around some small businesses before and can attest this to be true in my experience with businesses doing less than a million dollars of revenue per year (not of course taking into account the specific trade of the business).  However, in my experience with these small businesses, the expense of paying employees is far less a burden than the expense of renting commercial space, or paying for inventory.  The biggest bitch of being small retailer of any sort is getting people to purchase your shit.  In my anecdotal case, the owners of these mom and pop businesses are one of the worker in the business, stocking shelves, mopping the floors etc… The profit margins of these types of businesses do not depend on the salary of their workers nearly as much as their fledgling customer flow.  And as such, you’re hearing the argument come less form mom and pop stores and more from the likes of the Walton family, who run the small corner store known as Wal-Mart.

 The Walton’s being one of the richest families in the world have made their claim on the backs of workers from the inception of their business plan.  Purchase the cheapest materials sewn together by the children of Vietnam for 47 cents a week, then sold to a municipal worker, or nursing assistant on a Saturday before the football game for dollars on the cent (proportionally).  Investment flows in, cheap products created with slave labor ensures a tiny overhead resulting in a huge margin to be split among the investors, with the remaining crumbs handed out in the form of bull shit salaries to those who stock the shelve at their “market value”.  What I’m rambling on about here is the argument that minimum wage hikes reduce employment is a farce.  I’m able to sleep at night with the idea that if you’re company has a board and stock value, but cannot afford to pay its workers appropriate wages to live where they work, your company is doing nothing shy of total exploitation, and should admit it or pack up shop.  If Wal-Mart came out and said “once again using our business model of utilizing slave labor we’re able to secure record profits for our investors”, I’d probably lay off of them a bit…because at least they wouldn’t be fooling anyone with their cheery yellow smiley faces.

-In Mississippi, by contrast, many employers will have to raise their wages, and it’s a safe bet that virtually all of the cost of this minimum wage hike will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices

                Each of these arguments takes place through a lens where we’re still focusing on the crumbs and not the overwhelming amount of capitol absorbed by the 1%, and argument which should marry itself to the question of “who actually makes society run”?  I hate to get into an argument of who “deserves” what, but all too often I’m hearing the arguments of the poor shot down by the privileged with words such as entitlement, hand out, redistribution of wealth, lazy etc…While the justification of the ridiculous salaries of the CEO justified with arguments involving the words “hard work”.  How do we define or quantify the “hardness” of work?  Should we use hours worked, metric tons of weight moved, steps taken, words typed, or other things such as hands shaken, ties tied, memo’s dictated etc…  I’m sure the CNA’s at my hospital working their way through nursing school have worked more hours than the CEO that day and week; the transportation techs have walked more steps, the maintenance workers and housekeepers have moved more metric tonnage, and the unit secretary have typed plenty more words.  But what does it matter? The calluses on hands verses the shininess of penny loafers?  Instead of defining hard work through the dick measuring of work pain (because if we did that I’m sure anyone who spent a summer roofing would win), let use define hard work through the litmus test I call “what would happen if we didn’t show up”.  What would happen if the CEO of my hospital didn’t show up to work tomorrow? Well in the ER I sure as shit cannot tell you if I notice an effect when my CEO is in his office or touching dicks at some golf resort; however, I can feel an effect if if x-ray is short staffed or some nurses called in sick to work.  I’m rambling again; I don’t want to get into some long diatribe about Marxism and labor, but what I do want to ask for the one millionth time is why the fuck are we scoffing at those who simply want to be able to pay the rent of their meager 1 bedroom apartment (avg price in Denver $1,700/ month) while those who add practically nothing to the productivity of society prance away in their 80 foot yacht with an applaud from us for all of their “hard work”?

-Low-wage employers take on the challenge of succeeding where families and schools have failed.

                What the holy fuck? I’m noticing as I type more, I swear more, but seriously? What god damn challenge is a low-wage employer taking on here?  This argument makes it seem like the ever omnipotent farm owner who hires a team of undocumented workers who will sweat until kidney failure just to earn enough cash to pay for their shitty asbestos lined former meth-house apartment, is doing some sort of god damn charity.  Let’s clear this up, low wage employers (janitorial, grounds-keeping, technicians etc…) are doing nothing more than taking advantage of a workforce that is overinflated, underpaid, and in totally desperate need of some kind of income.  Let’s examine the guy selling beer at the baseball stadium (the one walking up and down the seats).  Do you think they’re getting paid $9.30/hr because their employer, Fuckface Event Staff, have virtuously decided to shoulder the challenge of succeeding where families and schools have failed? Or is it perhaps because Fackface Event Staff knows there is an entire demographic of people out there who have no chance of getting any other employment, therefore they’ll pay Mr. or Mrs. Beer person whatever salary they please, because they know if Mr/Mrs Beer person complain about their salary, they’ll be shown the door, and ask to hand their vest to their replacement on the way out.  This again is looking at this nuance through the lens that we are beholden to our managers and should be thankful for our paychecks.

I had a few more arguments to rage against but I’ve noticed this current rant has rambled on for quite long.  Being a shit eater myself, I know I have my own problems to worry about and very little time to worry about the ramblings of some other asshole who thinks their opinion means something.

So to those of you who do the work, I thank you for your patients in reading my diatribe.  It’s good to be back.  Keep up the fight and tune in to the podcast!!!

Eddie

A Political Party That Date Raped a Nation

The Orange haired prince and his loyal political servants managed to temporarily mobilize the working class by tapping in to their totally appropriate hatred for the business class and the supremely wealthy. Rallying around promises to bring jobs back to the United States through trade tariffs, the prince’s rhetoric was music to the ears of folks who in particular had seen their manufacturing jobs outsourced overseas. I mean, initially, it sounds good to me too. 

Trump fired up the working class with comments such as: “It’s likely if we can improve the job picture for working-class young adults, they’d have family lives that are more stable”. Trumps campaign website even complains that hourly earnings are lower than they were in the 70’s…so with a little more than 10 days before he officially clocks in, how is the tidal wave that promised to “drain the swamp” starting to look for workers? Let’s check in with Kentucky to see! 

While a bunch of us were watching the wildcard games this weekend the Kentucky Senate passed a few little bills through the House as the first little symptom that they’d gone and Bill Cosby’ed your drink.  HB1 pass the Senate with a 25-12 vote effectively making Kentucky a “right-to-work” state.  BFD right? Indeed it is a BFD, but why?  Let us take a moment to examine what “right-to-work” actually is, and where it came from.

The right-to-work movement emerged in the South in the 1940s, with Arkansas passing the first law in 1944. The name may have emerged as a conservative rejoinder to workers’ claims for a “right to strike” or as an expression of “the right of contract.” In any case, it was deeply misleading, since it had nothing to do with the right to employment.  

"Although advocates sell right-to-work laws as promoting jobs and economic growth, the movement has always been ideological", said Colorado State University professor Raymond Hogler in his new book. He explains that the debate over right to work reflects a division of views—largely rooted in the existence of slavery in the South—about basic notions of community, liberty, freedom and property. The political culture of the South emphasized liberty as emancipation of the individual (except, of course, for black slaves) within a strongly hierarchical system, while the culture of the North valued freedom as a self realization of individuals by means of collective action, rooted in communities. “The South doesn’t like unions or collective activity, anything that interferes with the hierarchical world view,” Hogler writes. 

After sweeping most of the South and Great Plains states from the late 1940s through the 1970s, the right-to-work movement slowed down until 2012, when it scored victories in two industrial heartland states. After saying he wasn’t interested in passing right to work, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels suddenly signed it into law. Then Michigan labor unions were caught off guard when Gov. Rick Snyder suddenly went back on his word and did the same. Those precedents, combined with many states turning red in the 2012 elections, opened the floodgates for the new multi-state push.  But still, WTF does right-to-work even mean…we’ll get there.  

I remember when I was 16 I got a job as a bag boy at King Soopers in Colorado Springs.  King Soopers workers belong to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), at which upon signing my employment agreement, I did as well.  At 16 I had no god damn idea what a union was or did, except that it took $15 from my paycheck ever damn week.  I had no choice, either I agreed to be in the union and pay dues, or I agreed not to work for King Soopers…well weed wasn’t going to buy itself, and at 16 I was marginally qualified to sleep, video game, and masturbate (usually in that order)…so I couldn’t be picky, I took the job.  At the time I had no idea the function of a union except sometimes I’d hear about people striking, and all the time they took money out of my paycheck.  It wasn’t until a decade and a half later that began to understand why the UFCW needed my $15/ week, and what the potential benefits of compulsory union membership looked like. 

Now that Kentucky is a “right-to-work” state, there will be no sleeping/video gaming/ masturbating 16 year old forced into a union; instead they’ll be quite nicely asked if they’d like to be a part of the union, and whether or not they’d like to donate a bit of their weed money to the cause…again, whats the BFD?  I’ll tell you.

The problem is that when “fair share” dues requirements are eliminated through right-to-work laws or measures that focus on cutting public workers’ rights, unions often quickly lose members, money and the power to save themselves and protect remaining members. After Wisconsin approved Walker’s Act 10, for example, the union share of the public workforce dropped from 50 percent to 37 percent in the first year (a decline of about 50,000 members). By the end of the second year, public union losses ranged from about 30 percent of teachers to 88 percent of security employees. In just over a year, under Michigan’s right-to-work law, which affected only workers under new and renegotiated contracts, union membership had dropped by 7.5 percent, or 48,000 members.  

It’s kind of like giving the union cancer.  Eliminating the dues requirements, and/or compulsory membership, while allowing everyone to reap the benefit of the union work completely thins the resources of the union, and thereby destroys its ability to represent the worker in any sort of meaningful way.  Kind of like all your dick head friends showing up to your party but not bringing any booze, then they all point to you when the cops come…to far?  At any rate right-to-work laws have definite effects. A 1987 study of 21 right-to-work states found that the passage of such laws reduced union membership—by 5 to 10 percent in the first five years. As a result, the wealth of corporate shareholders grows—by 2 to 4 percent, according to one study. Apparently, this comes out of workers’ pockets: An Economic Policy Institute study found that in right-to-work states, average wages were about 3.2 percent lower (or $1,500 a year) than in other states, remember when Trump complained that wages were stagnated at levels not seen since the 70’s?  Let the Cosby concoction soak in...

Yet no studies conclusively demonstrate that right-to-work laws create more jobs or a more vibrant economy. Surveys of both large corporations and small manufacturers about their location decisions have found that right to-work had little to no bearing—more influential factors included highway accessibility and construction costs. And although low-wage, right-to-work states had some success in luring manufacturing to the South in the mid-20th century, today such jobs are likely to head overseas from both the North and the South.

This is only the beginning, the Prince’s labor plan includes a national right-to-work plan.  Just ask states like Wisconsin who’ve seen their collective bargaining abilities all but flat line in the wake of Governor Scott Walkers total dismantlement of the system through right-to-work laws. 

So now, aside from effectively stripping unions of all power, this ingenious plan has a great potential to pit workers against each other.  Workers trying hard to fight for rights, yet the union has no resources to support them because all of these “freeloaders” aren’t contributing their fair share…This is exactly what they want, us fighting each other of the meager crumbs keeping appropriately distracted as not to ask who the hell took the cake in the first place.

Spend More Time Working, Less Time Talking…Trump Works Harder Than You, it’s Your Fault Your CEO Outsourced Your Job.

Spend more time working, less time talking…Trump Works Harder Than You, it’s your fault your CEO outsourced your job.

This past week has revealed yet another set of smoke in mirrors deception levied against the working person by the upcoming presidential administration.

Through the media president-elect Donald Trump lauded himself through claims that he through his savvy business acumen was able to negotiate terms agreements between Carrier Enterprises and the soon to be administration that would retain 1,100 Carrier jobs that were slated to be shipped to Mexico.  Though a deal where Carrier stands to see $7M in tax breaks over the next ten years, according to Trump, the company has agreed to retain those 1,100 jobs, saving the livelihood of 1,100 workers, and further reinforcing the almighty and omnipotent station of the loving Trump.

Well imagine that.  Yet another thing said by Trump has proven to be little more than a bunch of hot gas meant only to elicit cheers from those of us with dry wall dust on our boots, blood spatter on our scrubs, or what whatever brand of general filth working people might accumulate during their day to day toil.

If February, corporate officials at Carrier announced they would move 1,300 jobs to Mexico, a move that would save the company $65M in pesky worker salary and benefits.  Expectantly, the president of the United Steel Workers Local 1999, Chuck Jones, took issue with this and sought out to negotiate the terms of this castration.  “Over the next several months, my team and I worked tirelessly to keep Carrier in our city. We came up with $23 million in savings, but the Carrier brass said that wasn’t enough. They could save $65 million by moving to Mexico.  Our union offered Carrier ‘what would it take to keep you here’ and they said, ‘there is nothing you could do to keep us here unless you would work for under $5 an hour.” Jones said.

Then from the heavens descends the almighty too long tie wearing The Trump.  Swooping in with his flaming sword of business, he secured the deal with Carrier and wasted no time talking about it to the news. 

However, when Jones saw the footage of The Trump he felt something was amiss.  To use Jones’ exact words Tump “lied his ass off”. “When I met with Carrier officials last Thursday, I realized that that wouldn’t be the case. Though Trump said he’d saved 1,100 jobs, he hadn’t.  As opposed to initial claims by The Trump and the United Steelworkers that 1,100 jobs would be saved, only 730 production jobs and 70 maintenance jobs out of 1,400 current positions would remain in Indianapolis. The deal also sanctions the shutdown of Carrier’s Huntington, Indiana, plant and the elimination of 700 more jobs.  Carrier told us that 550 people would get laid off.  Trump didn’t tell people that, though. When he spoke at our plant, he acted like no one was going to lose their job. People went crazy for him. They thought, because of Trump, I’m going to be able to provide for my family.  All the while, I’m sitting there, thinking that’s not what the damn numbers say. Trump let people believe that they were going to have a livelihood in that facility. He let people breathe easy. When I told our members the next day, they were devastated.  In addition, Trump promised the UTC boss, Gregory Hayes, that he would “reform” federal tax codes and regulations that would allow Hayes “to print money.”

As per The Trump’s typical strategy after being told things like China starts with a “Ch” not a “G”, grabbing women by the pussy is poor chivalry, and that opinions espoused on Twitter don’t simply disappear because you’re debating someone in a pantsuit; The Trump took to twitter to lambast Jones and his stupid peasant opinion on what numbers actually mean and what constitutes the true.  Tweeting, “Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!” and, “If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues.”

That last Tweet really flows off the tongue doesn’t it?  Goes down smooth like Jello brand chocolate pudding laced with Ketamine (too soon?). Here we have a man with a net worth somewhere in the realm of $3.6 Billion (with a B) lambasting a man who makes fractions of a cent to that of The Trump for his work ethic.  The Trump once claimed $1.9M for consulting services, more scratch than Jones has probably seen through his lifetime…but The Trump is the one working hard.

Carrier is just the beginning. The Trump can’t go more than 48 hours without taking a giant shit in the mouth of a working single mother, line technician, EMT, nurse, or carpenter.  The Trump has recently announced his nomination for Secretary of Labor to be Andrew Puzder, CEO of the restaurant company CKE that oversees franchises such as Hardees and Carl’s Jr. 

A vocal opponent of the fight for $15/hr, overtime pay, and the Affordable Care Act Puzder is an advocate for reducing the burden of paying employees in any sort of capacity for anything at all if it can be avoided.  Puzder once stated that working people don’t want pay raises because they’re afraid of losing government benefits. Talking to Fox and Friends Puzder said:

“The policy guys call it the "Welfare Cliff," because you get to a point where if you make a few more dollars you actually lose thousands of dollars in benefits. And, quite honestly, these benefits are essential for some people. They are how they pay their rent; they are how they feed their kids. So, what happens is, we have people who turn down promotions or, if minimum wage goes up, they want fewer hours. They want less hours because they are afraid they'll go over that cliff.”

Oh isn’t that sweet of you Mr. Putzdick?  You’re just trying to save us from that scary cliff. 

Puzder has even entertained the idea of totally replacing his workforce with robots because as he puts it:

“They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”

I guess he’s right.  I mean with a staff of robots you can get fresh extra crispy fries without having to look at a dark skinned person, or without ever hearing a complaint about pussy grabbing.

He may be saying that he wants to optimize the customer experience, but let’s not be fooled.  Paying people to do things means he can’t pay himself, which of course is the purpose of all CEO’s…make as much profit as fast as possible.   

Puzder opposes guaranteeing overtime for poorly-paid salaried employees, such as the men and women who manage his restaurants.  Speaking to the OC Register in 2014, Puzder also complained that California law was too strict about rest and meal breaks for employees.  Along with California’s overtime laws and minimum wage, he cited these requirements as a reason to halt expansion of CKE Restaurants in the state.  Make no mistake, Puzder and all of his CEO cadre hate you.  They hate you because you take from them what is rightfully theirs.

So far, the Trump cabinet has a combined net worth of over $14 billion. Their wealth and their policies place them in direct conflict with the interests of the American working class.  Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman-Sachs executive responsible for a pandemic of foreclosures, has been tapped as Secretary of the Treasury. And representative Tom Price, a proponent of massive cuts in health care, has been selected to head the Department of Health and Human Services.  At the same time, Trump continuing and deepening the policies of the Obama administration. Obama allowed Wall Street to choose key members of his cabinet. He supported bank bailouts while leaving workers to contend with underwater mortgages and foreclosures. He spearheaded the assault on wages through the bankruptcy of the auto companies, and his principle domestic initiative—the Affordable Care Act—served to shift costs of health care from corporations and the state onto individuals.

Now after that rant I need a drink…or a pistol…or both.

Asshole shaped lips, the universal signal that they dont give a damn about you.

From parking spaces to seats on an airplane the divide between those who punch a clock and those who do not is evident in any and all venues.  Let you violate the sanctity of one of these sacred places by attempting to cross their thresholds without the proper letters after your name, and you’ll be quickly slapped back into your place by either a felt curtain, or crisp parking violation…in most cases.

This was not the case for the passengers of an American Airlines flight that was making a connection in Phoenix Az.  The family of fallen Army Sergeant John Perry was executing what some might argue one of the most miserable task a family can execute, traveling to retrieve the body of their slain son who’d been transported from Afghanistan (where he was killed) to Dover Air Force Base. 

Fearing they might miss their connecting flight the pilot asked the passengers to remain seated while a “special military family” exited first.  Upon hearing that they’d be waiting for slime military folk to exit the airplane, some of the first class passengers chose to boo the decision of the captain by doing exactly that, shaping their lips to resemble your organ most responsible for last step of defecation, while making a general low groaning sound, perhaps a similar sound they make when they find their housekeeper didn’t fold a nice triangle in their triple ply, sensitive tushy toilet paper. It’s not clear if the 1st class passengers knew they were complaining for having to wait on a Gold Star Family (a title reserved for families of those killed in combat), they did however know they were waiting on a military family for which they made their protest evident.  Some were heard saying “this is just boloney, I paid for first class for this?”

Now aside from this being just another example of entitled American jackassary, the fact that the crew and passenger already knew there was a “special” military family on board should have tipped them off to something.  You can’t board a flight in American without seeing at least one service member of sorts negotiating the total ineptitude of their third party contracted travel arrangements.  This is an expression of the “my time is worth more than yours”, “you’re just a garbage military volunteer, I’m actually a productive member of society”, or “I work harder/better than you” attitude.  Boo’ing a Gold Star Family is repugnant, but boo’ing a military family because they get to leave the plane 32 seconds before you do is par for the course in a country that views municipal, fast food, skilled trade, service, or otherwise hourly workers as brainless cattle that are to be tolerated, but seen as little as possible.  By boo’ing that family (assuming they didn’t know they were a Gold Star family) they were boo’ing the people who manufactured the plush seats wide enough for their affluent asses, who served them bubbling Champaign as if flying from PHX to Philli was some kind of god damn black tie gala.  They were boo’ing the folks who fueled the airplane, cleaned the bathrooms, or stared at the radar screen ensuring these giant metal cylinders didn’t collide with one and other a 500mph. Their boo’ing was more than an expressing of inpatients; it was I giant “fuck you, we’re better than you” to all of us who are not them.  Let them boo. Let them boo when there’s no ramp worker to attach the climate controlled jetway to the airplane.  Let them boo when there’s no baggage handler to make sure their pedigree $600 rolling suitcase gets to where it need.  Let them boo when the airplane falls out of the sky like giant fucking lawn dart because there was no service technician to ensure the avionics were working correctly.  And let them boo when none of us show up to work and they’re left holding the dish soap, nail gun, stop sign, or welding torch.     

Democrans & Republicrats: Two Sides of the Same Filthy Toilete Seat

The announcement by President-elect Donald Trump that he is appointing Breitbart News head Stephen Bannon as his “chief strategist,” and the absence of any significant opposition from the Democratic Party, has vast political significance. A man with direct ties to fascist, racist and white supremacist organizations will be the right-hand man of the president, with immense power to determine government policy.

Trump's rise to power signals a drastic political realignment within the American ruling class. The outcome last Tuesday was the product, in the words of Obama, of an “intramural scrimmage” within the ruling class. Out of this conflict, a new extreme right and fundamentally anti-democratic political orientation has been determined.

Trump decided he could go ahead with the appointment of Bannon because he knows that the Democratic Party has no interest in defending the most basic democratic rights. The groveling response to his election from leading Democrats—from Obama and Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—has led him to conclude that he can go ever further in the construction of an ultra-right government of extreme political reaction.

The level of indifference, complacency and collaboration from within the Democratic Party was exemplified in Obama’s press conference on Monday, the first since Trump’s election.

Obama refused to comment when asked about the appointment of Bannon, saying that it was “up to him [Trump] to assemble a team” and that it was “important for us to let him make his decisions.” Obama went on to praise his “cordial discussion” with the president-elect and said that the American people must “reconcile themselves” to a Trump presidency. His own task, Obama added, was to be “as helpful as I can to him in going forward and building on the progress we made.”

The response of the Democrats to the election of Trump is even more remarkable given the circumstances of the election itself. For the second time in sixteen years, an election in the United States has not been determined by the popular vote, but the Electoral College. This outcome, which before the theft of the election in 2000 had not occurred for 112 years, has evoked no objection from the Democrats.

At his press conference, Obama said nothing about the fact that Trump lost the popular vote by as many as two million votes, or that the two most economically significant states in the country voted against him by wide margins. He did not note that after all votes are counted, Trump will have likely received fewer votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012, when he lost to Obama. He did not suggest that because of this, the incoming president does not have a popular mandate to carry out the right-wing measures he is planning.

In recent days, Trump has begun to outline the political trajectory of his administration. In an interview on “60 minutes” Sunday, he pledged to round up and detain “two million, it could even be three million” immigrants. The Supreme Court will be stacked with extreme-right, “pro-life” judges who would overturn the right to abortion and Trump left open the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into his former opponent in the elections, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

None of this provokes an ounce of protest from the Democratic Party. All that the Democrats are now concerned about is ensuring an “orderly transition of power.” But a transition to where?

While Trump represents something new in American politics, he is not entirely a break from the past. With his election, the ruling class is accelerating the implementation of an extremely anti-democratic orientation that has been underway for more than a quarter century.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the ideologists of the American ruling class proclaimed the “end of history.” Capitalism had triumphed, which would bring with it, so it was claimed, a period of peace and the expansion of liberal democracy. What in fact emerged was twenty-five years of unending war, deepening economic crisis, historically unprecedented levels of social inequality and the destruction of the most basic forms of democratic rule.

In December 2000, in advance of the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore that halted the recount of votes in Florida and handed the election to George W. Bush, the WSWS wrote that the outcome would reveal “how far the American ruling class is prepared to go in breaking with traditional bourgeois-democratic and constitutional norms.” The Democratic Party’s refusal to stop what amounted to a political coup—the theft of an election—demonstrated that there was no significant constituency within the ruling class for the defense of democratic rights.

Everything that has happened since has proved this fact. Less than a year after coming to power, the Bush administration seized on the attacks of September 11, 2001 to launch a “war on terror”—in fact, a political justification for endless war abroad and the destruction of democratic rights within the United States.

Since his election in 2008, Obama has escalated the attack on democratic forms of rule. In policy doctrines and executive actions, the Obama White House asserted the presidential power to assassinate US citizens without charge. The torturers and war criminals of the Bush administration went unpunished, while the power of the military-intelligence-police apparatus has grown enormously.

Much of what was going on, in part behind the scenes, under Obama will take on a much more direct form under Trump. A form of American authoritarianism is emerging—which will be directed at the increasingly violent suppression of working-class struggle.

Efforts are underway to minimize the significance of what has happened. The corrupt American media is adapting itself to the new ultra-right regime. The New York Times, after campaigning for Clinton throughout the election, has issued a groveling apology for its coverage. Its columnists, who previously berated anyone who did not back the Democratic Party campaign, now counsel that it is necessary to “give Trump time” to see what he will do.

The fundamental lesson that must be drawn is that opposition to political reaction, war and inequality cannot be waged within, through, or in alliance with, any faction of the Democratic Party. While Trump represents an alliance of Wall Street with fascistic forces, the Democratic Party is a political alliance of Wall Street and privileged, complacent and selfish sections of the upper middle class.

The Democrats are far more fearful about the consequences of stirring up opposition in the working class than they are about any tactical differences with Trump. They are aware of the enormous level of popular opposition that exists, directed at both political parties, and are desperate to prevent any avenue for this opposition to find political expression. Not a single significant Democratic Party official has openly declared their solidarity with the protests over Trump’s election or expressed sympathy for the demonstrators, let alone joined them.

While Trump’s electoral victory marks a major shift to the right by the American ruling class, millions of workers and youth are moving in a different political direction. Trump was able to exploit social anger due to the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, under conditions of a general collapse of voter turnout and deep hostility to the entire political establishment. However, the vast majority of those who voted for Trump did not vote for an extreme-right regime, and as the character of his administration becomes clear, social and political opposition will grow.

The election of Trump underscores the urgent necessity of this task. Opposition to the Trump administration and the policies that it will pursue must be developed and organized throughout the country. All workers and youth looking for a way to fight must draw the necessary conclusions from the 2016 elections.

Today Amendment 71, tomorrow We do the Work...

In these days of pipeline protests, political pandering, and divisive media; the total disenfranchisement of the working class has never been more pronounced.   The quote, “the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires” seems to completely summarize the state of the working class today.  We have no identity.  We see ourselves as existing in our place, behind the register, mop, backhoe, stethoscope, or steering wheel.  We didn’t work hard like the CEO who makes twice our yearly salary in a week, we do not deserve their kind of salary.  We do not buck the system, we embrace it.  We ask for higher wages, and when denied we’re reminded of the dozens of other people who’d happily do our job for half the pay.  Family after family are living paycheck to paycheck mean while those who aim to represent the most powerful people on the planet are spend the fraction of a medium sized countries GDP on speaking events: bouts of elaborate pageantry meant only to further their station by blinding the working class as to what they really represent.  As seen here in Colorado the elite class know exactly who they are, where they stand, and what they must do to maintain their station.  Amendment 71, funded by large corporations, and championed by the likes of John Elway, or Governor John Hickenlooper; seeks to make it more difficult to amend the Colorado constitution.  Through ballot initiatives the previous two years voters in Colorado have come closer than ever to having the political strength to make a real and direct impact in the operations of multi-billion dollar corporations who put our environment, and the health of the working class at risk while taking in record profits.  Amendment 71, cutely named “Raise The Bar” seems to be a reaction of the elite class who witnessed the real potential of the working people to hold them to account.  Funded solely by special interests and championed by those beholden, it is a direct assault on the political power of those who make this world turn, the working class.  The elites know we’re the sole proprietors of the political power and wish to ensure we never realize it.  We do the work people, not the CEO’s not the politicians, not the managers: as so precisely captured by one of my favorite authors, “Remember this. The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life…so don’t fuck with us.”