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The following comment was made on the AFL-CIO NOW Blog article:
Just Because the Engine is Running Doesn’t Mean It Has Gas
By William Spriggs, 12/12/201
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Economy/Just-Because-the-Engine-is-Running-Doesn-t-Mean-It-Has-Gas4
Comment by Jeremy Wells
The organizational crises facing the AFL-CIO and the economic crises facing
working people will never be solved by former Obama appointee William Spriggs,
playing games with statistics. Fundamentally new organizational and political
strategies are now demanded.
The AFL-CIO must now break all ties with the Democratic Party!
The historic low voter turnout in November dramatically confirmed what the low
popularity poll numbers for Obama and Congressional politicians of both
parties, have indicated. Neither corporate corrupted Democratic nor reactionary
Republican parties, neither Democratic nor Republican millionaire politicians,
can ever represent or fight for the economic interests of the working class
majority of voters.
The AFL-CIO supported Democratic Party candidate for the Governor of Michigan,
Mark Schauer, was defeated in his attempt to unseat incumbent Republican
Governor Rick Snyder. Schauer's campaign slogans ignored the working class.
Schauer said not a word about the hundreds of destitute families living in
Detroit, unable to pay their utility bills, were having their water shutoff!
Instead, Mark Shauer's slogans advocated, among other things, "cutting
middle-class taxes" and that Rick Snyder "doesn't understand middle-class
values". This "Middle Class" rhetoric, never mentioning the dire needs of the
working class majority, is often used by AFL-CIO President Trumka as well as
President Obama.
The AFL-CIO today must realize that trade union labor contracts, by
themselves, have failed to secure and maintain the economic justice of their
members. Collective bargaining agreements only deal with wages and benefits
with one employer. Labor contracts do not cover other essential economic needs
required by working people. These economic needs are secured and maintained by
laws passed by pro-labor law-makers, not by trade union contracts.
New laws are now desperately needed to maintain public (not privatized)
tuition-free education, establish universal "single-payer" (not "Obama-care")
health care, maintain (not cut) Social Security, create millions of "living
wage" public sector jobs (which the private sector can not provide), to promote
worker owned co-operative enterprises, etc.
A new Solidarity political party, to break with the corporate-corrupted
Democratic Party,to powerfully unite organized trade union and unorganized
workers, which refuses all corporate money and agendas, will run and elect
pro-labor law-makers as soon as possible in every local, State, and Federal
election. The long-term goal of The Solidarity Party would be to build a new
economy that provides a universal minimum "standard of living" for all working
people.
Pro-worker mass media economic education for the public and all working people.
The AFL-CIO must help sponsor, produce, and broadcast nightly on PBS
television, a news and commentary program promoting the economic betterment of
working people.
Worker funded, not corporate corrupted! Millions of new Solidarity Party
voters, paying a minimal monthly dues, would easily fund the Solidarity Party
organizational needs. Fund-drives would provide on-going financial support of a
pro-labor PBS program from viewers.
The Solidarity Party will fail if simply a "trade union party" and must unite
and fight in solidarity for economic justice for all workers, unorganized as
well as organized
A new 21st Century understanding is needed by the labor movement, by the
AFL-CIO, to develop new organizational and political strategies to fight back
Capitalist Globalization which has permanently lost millions of U.S. jobs and
impoverishes U.S. workers.
New ways of economic production and job creation, new ways of work, that break
with the failed 20th century system of wage-slavery work and capitalist
exploitation, are not only possible but now necessary for economic justice in
the 21st century.
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