If there is no POWER in a Labor Movement , than there can be no movement .
Who made this incredibly insightful statement? Andy Stern? John Sweeney? Joe Hansen? Jimmie Hoffa? Any one of the thousand other really high and mighty within organized labor?
Nope, none of the above even begin to come close to this basic concept of how it should be. This assessment came from a worker in a grocery store; a UFCW member who has been self-educating on the internet.
Slaveway http://slaveway.infopop.cc/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/965600035/m/7581022951 has been running for some three years plus now and has been a gathering spot for grocery workers (both union and non) around the country.
It is one of the reasons i believe the internet can and will be one of the primary tools in the rebuilding of a true worker movement. The boys can spew all the platitudes and the pundits can pontificate till ya puke, but until workers are allowed and encouraged to grow and become part of the solution, nothing will change.
Just imagine if we were helping hundreds, thousands, millions of workers become this savy. Can you see trained armies of workers capable of sharing opinions on talk radio, in Letters to the Editor, and in debates/discussions across the land. Picture websites laced with workers posting their thoughts regarding topics that inspired others to join in.
Vonsvision is dead on: There has to be power for there to be a movement. The fact is...it has never come from the leadership, but from the membership and their ability to become engaged and committed to fix their problems.
With all due respect to Andy, John, Joe and Jimmie, you better start reading what workers are writing on the net, because they are the ones who can save this movement, not you or me.
- Pearson's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- 797 reads
Right, that is the solution
You wrote: "Just imagine if we were helping hundreds, thousands, millions of workers become this savy. Can you see trained armies of workers capable of sharing opinions on talk radio, in Letters to the Editor, and in debates/discussions across the land. Picture websites laced with workers posting their thoughts regarding topics that inspired others to join in."
This is exactly what needs to happen. The key question is, how do you get there from here? What kind of organization will drive your vision and how do we build that organization? My approach is to reach out to current and future leaders and help them understand that the Internet must not be ignored and must be used to its fullest extent. If they get the message, great. If they don't, we're screwed. We'll be left with a country without a strong labor movement and extremely powerful corporations that basically control the government. If that happens, things will get much, much worse before they ever get better again.
When you come right down to it, that's what drives me. I am very fearful of what is going to happen to this society and to my two-year-old son if the labor movement continues to decline.
Future Leaders