The Struggle to Build a Fighting Union in Chicago

[asdjrocky]

Dec 25, 2009
By Steve Edwards, President, AFSCME Local 2858, personal capacity

There is a class war going on in this country and across the world. But only one side in that struggle seems to recognize it for what it is. Politicians and their corporate masters are cutting budgets, attacking benefits and laying off workers. Real wages for workers peaked in the early 1970’s, yet the official leadership of organized labor has spent most of the past forty years in denial that this is happening. The figures, and our bank accounts, our car loans and credit card bills and - for those lucky enough to "own" their homes - our multiply refinanced mortgages - do not lie. All this despite the unrelenting rise in productivity which we paid for with our brains, our bodies and our nervous systems.

The passing of the Tax the Rich resolution (below) on Friday, October 16 by members at the Illinois state convention of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) shows that workers are waking up to this reality a lot faster than our union leaders.

The rest-
http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article14.php?id=1225

[BrklynLiberal]

1. +100

http://www.progressive.org/

Some excellent articles there..about how the progressives...labor and such..must push Obama...not wait for him to lead.

[asdjrocky]

2. All movements forward come from the people.

From the bottom up, rather than from the top down. Thanks for the link.

[Omaha Steve]

3. I'm an AFSCME member

Local 251.

K&R!

[asdjrocky]

5. Thanks for checking in Steve!

:hi:

[leftstreet]

4. K&R

[StarfarerBill]

6. K&R

[blindpig]

7. k&r n/t