Unions, Democrats and Occupy Wall Street

[PETRUS]

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/05/unions_democrats_occupy_wall_street/singleton

But what happens when the liberal establishment begins to reach out to this amorphous collection of anarchists, libertarians, Ron Paul fans, sectarian lefties – plus many, many ordinary people turned activists, drawn by the call to protest the power of Wall Street? How will they relate to “a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought,” as the Occupy Wall Street folks describe their decision-making process? Can a leaderless movement get along with liberals and Democratic Party poobahs, who are essentially leaders without a movement? It looks like we’re going to find out.

[FarCenter]

1. Fundamentally at odds -- Unions protect members jobs while OWS people want jobs

[xchrom]

2. ...

:eyes: no.

[FarCenter]

4. Show me the union of unemployed and underemployed workers

Doesn't exist. There's no money in organizing the unemployed -- how would you collect union dues?

Unions exist to keep wages high, benefits robust, and working conditions good. This raises the cost per job and employers hire fewer people and expand more slowly than they otherwise would.

[xchrom]

6. wow -- you have your libertarian talking points down pat... nt

[xchrom]

7. ...

http://www.unionofunemployed.com/


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http://www.unionofunemployed.com/blog/recent-news/ucubed-passes-25000-mark/

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We have 871 cube leaders, folks who started a cube in their own zip code. That represents a 17.5 percent increase since the start of 2011.

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And our Facebook fans now number 20,112 – better than a sevenfold increase since New Year’s Day and more fans than SEIU, NEA or AFT have!

[FarLeftFist]

9. Probably should be receiving an apology soon.

[xchrom]

10. ...

:evilgrin:

[FarCenter]

11. Good! Glad to see it! They even have a pretty good resource from the IAM

http://www.unionofunemployed.com/files/2010/06/DecisionsandChoices.pdf

http://www.unemploymentlifeline.com/

[kenfrequed]

12. Uhm

Great lack of content by the way-

Unions and union organizations have continually lobbied agaisnt bills that destroy jobs in the US like the free trade legislation that reduced both union and non union manufacturing jobs. Unions work to lobby to increase the minimum wage frequently even though there are practically no union members paid at a minimum wage rate.

Unions protect WORKERS jobs. Unions protect workers.

There is no contradiction.

Only in the BS propaganda of the union busters does sucha contradiction exist.

[xchrom]

13. ...

:thumbsup:

[xchrom]

3. ron paul accolytes, priests & priestesses are not going to be persuaded by dems

any more than any other republican.

that they were 'clever' enough to try and co-opt the message is one thing -- it is still the WRONG message.

[Kingofalldems]

5. Kick and Rec all pro OWS threads

[mmonk]

8. They will have to choose. Afterall, the current problem with

the Democratic Party is it is amorphous itself.

[Starry Messenger]

14. The leaderless nature of the decentralization is going to lead to opportunism

But given that, this is still a good opportunity to talk about class struggle with people. The ultra-right opportunists worry me more actually, since they are old hands at rw economic populism with none of the crudity of the tea party. Ron Paul and his cultists are thugs and petty boug. reactionaries. They are not anti-capitalist. Don't encourage any openings for them.