Ten Reasons Protecting Unions Is a Life-and-Death Issue
In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of public-sector workers were going to work every day, helping the people in the DMV, hospitals, health care centers, public transportation: teachers, fire fighters, clerical workers, among others. Then, on February 11, 2011, Republican Gov. Scott Walker introduced a bill, with a Republican majority in the legislature, which would virtually eliminate public-sector unions as we know them. The bill opposed collective bargaining rights, required annual votes to ask workers if they wanted the unions to represent them and prevented unions from collecting dues automatically out of workers' paychecks. The anti-union movement is spreading to Ohio and many other states, and we have to develop a plan to beat back the pro-corporate, anti-union forces. Recently, the Massachusetts legislature, with a Democratic majority voted to deny public-sector unions the right to bargain collectively for medical coverage, leaving workers to fend for themselves.
These ten reasons are put forth as a tactic to help the movement for union rights.
1) Because the relationship between labor and capital and labor and management is in contradiction: They do not have the same class interests. Otherwise, we wouldn't
