Fellow workers, organize!
We all seem to understand intuitively that the government doesn’t work for us. Whether one is a warehouse worker like myself, a waiter, or an office worker, we all have this in common: the feeling that our "leaders" don't give a damn what we want or need.
Sure once every four years you’ll go vote Red or Blue but what good has that ever done you? If the Republicans really gave a damn about your rights to bear arms they wouldn’t’ve championed the 1994 gun ban. At two former Republican presidents’ urging they banned many semi-automatic firearms at the federal level for ten years. Likewise, if the Democrats really cared about abortion rights wouldn't they have codified it when they had the power to do so? Of course not! This is a well choreographed dance with each political pirouette designed to keep you focused on hating anyone in the opposite colored shirt. When was the last time either of these parties, composed nearly exclusively of Ivy League nepo-babies, has done a damn thing for the common man? Increasing the minimum wage in pace with inflation for example would drive other employers, like yours, to increase their wages likewise.
Workers have precious little political power in this country; we are told to vote once every four years for the color of the next swindler’s tie and be done with it. And what else can we do when things are as tough as they are for the average man? Who’s got the time to get politically active when you’re struggling to feed your family?
That's where the struggle for workers' rights comes in. We endeavor to enfranchise the working class and make policy not on the basis of what is most profitable but instead on the basis of what needs done for the average citizen. We endeavor to be citizens, in the real sense, with power over our government and more importantly power over our future, to be more than just subjects under an aristocracy! After all, it was over nearly the same conditions that the American Revolution was fought in. No taxation without representation? Of course! But what representation do we have now?
Some, understandably, believe the system is broken, but the reality of the matter is that the system is working exactly as intended. From the ground up the State apparatus is designed to keep power AWAY from you and your peers! We toil away keeping the country running while the parasites on top take the lion's share of our labor, sitting in their ivory tower and occasionally feigning interest in our well being to curry votes to maintain their positions of power. So what is there to do?
Join a union!
Unions are the most powerful tool we have for both political potency and financial security. On average union wages are 15 percent higher than comparable non-union jobs. That coupled with better job security and more paid leave is reason enough to start or join one. However, there's an even greater reason, bigger than all of us as individuals: the ability for members of the working class to bargain as a collective and demand not beg, that our conditions be improved. It's only thanks to unions that we have weekends, an 8 hour work day as opposed to 12+, sick leave, paid vacation, and many other labor rights we take for granted. And of course, there are some who have been burned by unions in the past, but this is not an enduring trait of unions' nature, rather the opposite; it is a consequence of the worker being at the mercy of union bureaucrats and of reduction of workers' voice in unions overall. Both are antithetical to labor unions’ explicit goals. We must stand firmly against any structure which acts against the enfranchisement of the worker.
The dictatorship of the elite must be replaced with true democracy, true power for the working class. It’s only by upsetting this unjust balance of power that we can truly be secure in our workplaces and in our nation's future. It’s only by throwing the bosses off our backs that we can be our own leaders and assume our proper place as the rightful stewards of this American experiment which has so regrettably fallen into disrepair. We have the tools to remake it, to construct a country where each and every one of us truly has liberty and justice delivered to us, by us.
We built this country and it’s only fair that we own it, don’t you think?