The AFL-CIO Should Be in Ferguson

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/18/the-afl-cio-should-be-in-ferguson/

by CARL FINAMORE

The weakness of organized labor is often attributed to its low numbers and they are low for sure. For example, AFL-CIO membership remained stagnant this year at 12.5 million even with the whopping addition last year of 1.3 million UFCW food and commercial workers.

Nonetheless, I believe the falling numbers are more a reflection than an explanation of labor’s decline. Therefore, I do not agree with the prevailing opinion that spending more money on organizing will turn everything around.

Our biggest problems are political, not organizational.

Put another way, corporate power looms large because unions are seriously disconnected from the social aspirations of the majority of working class women and people of color who strive for equality, justice and fair play that cannot be measured or satisfied solely by the size of a paycheck.

FULL story at link.

Carl Finamore is former president (ret) and current Local Lodge 1781, IAMAW, delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He can be reached at [e-mail]

[jwirr]

1. The economic issue is definitely there.

[Sherman A1]

2. Funamentally

I believe that this is all about economics, the suppression of wages, pitting groups against each other fighting over the scraps, while the 1% laugh all the way to their off shore bank.

[jwirr]

3. From the beginning I have wondered if the mess our whole world is in today doesn't stem from

the issues of poverty and scarcity. Income inequality and climate change. This situation in MO has been happening a long time and is also complicated by racism.

[Sherman A1]

4. It most certainly does

stem from income inequality. The 1% (or however you want to describe them) has skewed the game so much in their favor without regard to the ultimate consequences. Those are playing out now before our eyes in places like Ferguson.

It is all about the money (and the opportunity or lack of opportunity) which it brings and it always has been so.