Free Free Labor*

FREE FREE LABOR

I heard an NPR radio report that Florida and its wannabe Antichrist, Governor Ron DeSantis, eliminated, decertified, legislated out of existence the 43,000 strong public sector workers unions. It had an interview with the President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (me, being a Electricus Emeritus, quite proud) and he said, and I quote; "There's nothing we can do." That will go in the drawer along with "My hands are tied", "That's just the way it is.", "Just thank God you got a job.", and the old evergreen, "I'll get back to you." Union leadership finally speaks publicly.

Many people have figured out, Staughton Lynd for example, that “workers" have more rights organizing as a 501(c)(3) social club than being in a AFL-CIO affiliated union. This is a unique opportunity for radical labor activists within the locals to quit kissing ass to the existing bureaucracy and form a group that improves their jobsite. The Club has nothing to do with your job, regardless of the fact 99% of the membership also work together in their "free" time. You are free to associate voluntarily, and yes, cry me a river, you are going to have to pay your dues personally. The group isn’t bogged down by bi-partisan Taft/Hartley and Landrum/Griffin regulation. Imagine telling your membership to vote forever-the-hell they want to vote for.

State workers are the Aristocracy of Fabor (false labor). I'm not the only one resentful of these people never missing a paycheck during the entire COVID hysteria. There was nothing to do, there was no paper to shuffle. A skeleton crew could have kept things going for three years and the scissorbills cashed every check while their neighbors’ lives were economically destroyed by The State. State workers are paid prevailing wage, and they collect while the private economy works to eliminate union jobs. They don't deserve that wage 52 weeks a year, in so many ways. Greedy bastards without backbone or heart, nothing new.

In decaying, decrepit Cuba Libre, there is no private economy. You are a slave for the State. That's your Union. The Polish Communists said, "If they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work."

I did an interesting interview with a founding member of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and later involved with the forming of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for public workers in the State of California when Reagan was Governor. He claimed the politicians were all for collective bargaining. They saw it as way to shed over-ambitious administrative assistants, lawyers, left-brain managerial type people (lefties?) they didn't have jobs for anymore or wanted removed from staff without hard feeling. Ensuring the current politician’s political fiefdom, dispensing jobs and favors was their motivation. SEIU was an extension of management from the start. SEIU in California is The State.

Parents, be good teachers. If your child needs a good teacher outside the home, my bet is that teacher won't belong to an AFL-CIO affiliated union.

"There is nothing we can do." A Truth on NPR, how unusual.

*******************

******************

https://escapedwageslave.blogspot.com/2023/07/wage-slavery-compilation.html

**************************

FU TSA IRS*

Furloughed TSA workers plan protest at Sacramento International Airport

FU TSA IRS

I've been pro-labor all my life and have many examples to prove it.  

I don't support the State.  It's a prison.  These people are its' henchmen.

My sympathy goes to hard working people bringing a positive difference into society.  These TSA creeps have confiscated my property, my daughters' make-up bag and have made my life difficult enough to take Amtrak, and I've been hassled there.  To support these non-essential employees of the Federal government is the mindset of slavery in action.

I see in the article the Lamprey Union of AFGE is a also singing Solidarity Forever for the IRS employees who have gone TWO WHOLE WEEKS without pay.  Cry me a fucking river.

It seems the SEIU would have organized the guards at Dachau.

Without a moral base Organized Labor is your worst enemy.

****************

VA Secretary Says Workers Need Labor Protection From Union Officials

https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/22/eva-secretary-labor-protection-union-officials/

tps://www.sacbee.com/#storylink=cpy

Larry Duncan*

WARRIOR FOR THE WORKING CLASS (tho the working class doesn't want any warriors) 

Larry Duncan died.  He was 72 years old.  He was complicated, always focused on the task at hand.  Great integrity.  We worked together at Labor Beat for more than 20 years.  I can't say I ever got to know him as a friend.  His last words to me were cutting and personal, as all lefties do when they meet disagreement.  I let it go because I'm more familiar with the bigger man.

There used to be a labor movement in this country.  I got involved with video production inspired by Moore's "Roger and Me", the Rodney King beating and my own local's rank and file 1992 insurgency and paper ballot election clean sweep of officers.  The power of hand held video cameras, our own show slot and television studio and the backdrop of the Austin, MN meatpackers, the Peoria UAW Caterpillar, the Detroit Newspaper strike, and the Staley workers of Scabtown, IL (all sold out by their Internationals) made for compelling TV viewing, at least I thought so.  We covered them all, many in depth with the voices of those directly involved.  Chicago also had its Teamster dramas, Hotel workers shenanigans, and its SEIU company unionism to report on.  Plenty of material to work with.

In the late 90's, Wm. Jenkins and I were on a panel at some conference or another.  The labor officials present, some from Washington DC, were fawning over us wanting to know, "How do you guys do it?".  The fact is the phony SOB's never wanted to do it, and the only time labor officials are on television is in handcuffs from the courthouse to the car.  Labor Beat would get an annual donation from the local NABET Executive Board - National Assoc. of Broadcast Electrical Technicians - but they never made labor television unless it was their own picket line.  Labor Beat did a lot gratuitous work for these organizations and got very little support.  IBEW 1220 did have some technical classes for us and acted as our beard for appearances purposes.

At that same conference there were South Korean videographers that end up in jail for doing what Labor Beat was doing.  The video tape of the Korean General Strike of 1997 they smuggled out is still the most inspirational example of well organized labor resistance, rolling over their collaborative labor leadership, in recent times.  We were proud to broadcast it in Chicago.

We bridged the analog/digital tidal wave of change.  My fondest memories of editing with Larry was working on "Trainwreck of Ideologies", the 1996 government seal of approval of the Haymarket Anarchist's monument in Waldheim Cemetery.  We were in the editing suite under the stairs at CAN TV trying to mix the sound with knobs and needles as people were plodding up and down.  Larry, the perfectionist, would get so angry.  Later, CAN would give us the computer equipment  and software to edit in our own offices, but the old days taught us how to put a story together.

Orwell wrote about burning the books, Huxley about having so many books around nobody would read them.  Such is the case of Labor Beat and internet technology.  We couldn't wait for the day streaming video would come.  We were making You Tube videos before You Tube existed and were ready to pounce.  When the time arrived, we were swamped in a sea of cutesy cat videos.  Topical stories of the workplace went unwatched except by a few comrades (and the police).  Nobody watches Cable Access when they got Netflix.   Technologies, ex. Facebook, continues to be the new rope we hang ourselves with. 

Larry Duncan walked the walk as far as anti-war was concerned, and is still quite an inspiration to me to this day.  One day discussing the VA and Veterans benefits he said (as I remember), "What about my benefits?  I'm the one that did the right thing."  Larry was a Conscientious Objector in the Viet Nam war and suffered because of a correct moral decision.  In this military infused population mindset, it takes quite a bit of personal bravery and it's something I don't see at all in this country today. 

We were outraged when the Clinton Administration/NATO bombed a BelgradeTV station in the Kosovo war.  

Larry and Labor Beat's best work, in my opinion, was helping to organize and document the first  convention of US Labor Against the War at the Teamster 705 hall in 2001.  The work surrounding the Iraqi military aggression and continuing occupation was  the best on-the-ground reporting in the nation at that time.  The AFL-CIO convention of 2005 USLAW forced an antiwar resolution (watered down, of course, but nonetheless) and Labor Beat was there to record the brave delegates  state their  stance at the microphone.  It passed, the first of its kind in 100 years, and the AFL CIO quietly slipped into the shadows and has never been heard of since.  Organized Labor has not stopped one bullet from being manufactured, nor one missile shipped nor formed any alternative to the 'economic draft'.  The government war effort didn't miss a beat.  I'm proud of all Labor Beat's antiwar videos and the contributors and producers involved, all under Larry's leadership.

So now we have an American culture that needs constant entertainment, has no love of history or storytellers, and continues to blame everyone and everything for their own personal bad behavior.  Fixated on their genitals and confused as to why they don't match their feelings (it is all about them, after all). Holding Women's marches (for Solidarity, perhaps?) and then not being responsible for the 51% of lies told today. Slaves to their phones, slaves to the credit card company, slaves on the Corporate Plantation.The only acts of independent workplace action is to pack an AK47 with your lunch or melt down into a puddle tears and suffer from PTSD for the rest of your life through. The only unionism left, it seems, is the Chicago "Where's mine?" style.

Larry Duncan believed that change began in the workplace.  He fought very hard to empower working people.  But they weren't listening, and certainly not listening today.  His life's body of work will be housed in a dark closet in some university, as You Tube quietly deletes one video at a time with no one noticing, like Orwell's books one at at time on the bonfire.  The working class was hardly aware of Larry Duncan's contribution,  and they didn't support it when it was being done.  The institutions of labor and their quislings fought it.  A few of us are grateful and see quite a man behind it all.  He taught me a lot.  1) Struggle brings unhappiness  2) Learn to open your heart and love those closest to you.  It's the only thing that matters.

May Day 2018*

May Day 2018

"They rattle their chains to boast of their freedom." - Dresden James

Getting off the train, arriving in the big city, people were talking to themselves. Whether black, burned out and homeless or nicely dressed white women with earbuds, they were deeply into conversation, alone. One kicked out of the Matrix and the other furiously trying to get deeper, it seemed to me.

I arrived at the rally, on time, my fault, as the world is on Southern Black Time and nothing was doing. I watched a staffer set up her booth over and over again, taping her signs - "The Working Class Can Not Be Silenced" among others, as the wind would reconfigure as Nature will. When the female Adonis State Trooper appeared and stated the pop-up could not be spiked in the Capital grounds turf, it all had to be shifted just a bit, which started the process over again. I was an early observer and had nothing else to do but pee in the bushes, the work of Labor was never so obvious. Sisyphus had it easy.

The working class has been silenced and the voice of the Whining Class has been empowered.

At the scheduled kick off time, coincidentally, a team of State Horseback Troopers showed up drawing all attention. Labor does still scare them, no matter how weak it is. 

A ring of protest went around the Capital. Led by a bully with a bullhorn, haranguing people with Who are we? What are we here for? (a boxed lunch, maybe) and beseeching them to Fight Back, details unspecified. It reminded me of a cattle herd being prodded, with all the bleating and mooing, to the chute into the slaughterhouse. It is so demeaning to be yelled at by someone with a bullhorn.

Watching them I posted an imaginary rally:

Unhealthy looking nurses to rally at noon

Unemployed Carpenters at 12:30pm

Truckers with Suspended Licenses (TWSL) under the oak tree

Teachers with an Attitude Grand Finale at 1pm

May Day was International Workingman's Day. Political Correctness states International Workers Day. I prefer International Communist Plain and Simple Day, shortened to National ComPlain Day. I'm Black, I'm Black and Female, I'm Black and Female and Gay, I'm Bi-Racial Transexual and an Illegal Immigrant, everyone, I mean everyone, carry me along. Does anyone actually work? Or does fretting about your self-existence take up your whole day? This rally was sponsored by the SEIU - StrawBosses for Employees Inclined to Unemployment.

The Communist have no heroes. They stole the Haymarket martyrs, subjects of State murder, as an example of the "Eight Hour Day". Hell, Parsons, Spies and all wanted the No Hour Day. Communists have a way of taking a point, turning it inside out up-side down, presenting it as something new. They are very unimaginative and will die on their own, as this May Day and organized labor has shown. Socialist heaven is colorless.

Q: How many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. The light bulb already contains the seed for it's own revolution.

A wet-behind-the-ears, just out of the box HERE organizer wanted me to sign his petition. He explained that the effort was to ask the employer to recognize their union. I said, "Ask? No, I won't sign your petition." He wanted to know why not. I'm sick of the same old stupid ways of going about things. I'm not interested in giving my personal information to your union so they can sell it to a company to email bomb me and call me incessantly. I also added, to the the youngster, it's not a real good idea to furnish a future blacklist to the employer. His response was to ask me, "Can you give me an example when a petition drive did not work?" I said, "Yes. Every time." "You are not going to sign my petition?" "No." And he went looking for another mark.

I was approached by a man in a white smock "Dr Berenson" stitched. Wanted to know if I wanted Health Care for All. My question to him was , "Have you been to the State Fair?" "No" "You should see the slice of life your getting into. They are obese, diabetic, and suffering from the pharmaceuticals that people like you have given them" (as I jammed a finger into his chest)." When I told him I wanted to be in a plan with yoga teachers, he called me "negative" and walking away from said, "your a loser." Calling him back a little later I said, "Hey Loser, show me any Identification that you are a doctor. Anything." He never met someone that called him a liar to his face. I'm finding it quite easy dealing with lefties these day, it's all about the spin, relative morality, the cause, or as Lenin might say "just lie." Facts are inconvenient things to them.

Lincoln freed those of Involuntary Slavery. You are more than happy to be a Volunteer Slave. I worked in the trades under the rubric, "You can quit anytime you want". I never took it as threat, in fact, I used the out quite often. I always knew I sold myself on a temporary basis, like a prostitute if you will. It seems we are in the days where the working-class has put themselves in a position, because of bad money handling and debt, mostly, that they can't quit. Now their voluntary status has returned to involuntary, and they can't recognize the invisible chains on their legs.

One lone young Wobbly, thankfully made my day. Just enough spunk to hassle the stupid "it's the politician's fault" pie card speaker. He made my heart fill with joy, someone else calling bullshit when they see it. I didn't go away defeated, just once again, deflated.