"Fore" from Gainesville, Florida: Unions: The History of Their Socialist Agenda!

Their hand in hand socialist march with the Democrat party in American History.

The first real effective national union was private employee unions and they were a true necessity when they were first formed back in the early days of this countries industrial revolution to help stop the extreme exploitation of workers in several key sector industries in this country.

The labor history of the United States describes the history of organized labor, as well as the more general history of working people, in the United States. Pressures dictating the nature and power of organized labor have included the evolution and power of the corporation, efforts by employers and private agencies to limit or control unions, and U.S. labor law. As a response, organized unions and labor federations have competed, evolved, merged, and split against a backdrop of changing social philosophies and periodic federal intervention. As commentator E. J. Dionne has noted, the union movement has traditionally espoused a set of values—solidarity being the most important, the sense that each should look out for the interests of all. From this followed commitments to mutual assistance, to a rough-and-ready sense of equality, to a disdain for elitism, and to a belief that democracy and individual rights did not stop at the plant gate or the office reception room. Dionne notes that these values are "increasingly foreign to American culture."

The history of organized labor has been a specialty of scholars since the 1890s, and has produced a large amount of scholarly literature. In the 1960s, as social history gained popularity, a new emphasis emerged on the history of workers, with special regard to gender and race. This is called "the new labor history". Much scholarship has attempted to bring the social history perspectives into the study of organized labor.

The first local trade unions of men in the United States formed in the late 18th century, and women began organizing in the 1820s.However, the movement came into its own after the Civil War, when the short-lived National Labor Union (NLU) became the first federation of American unions.

Women working under sweat shop conditions organized the first union in the early 19th century. According to the book American Labor, in 1834-1836 women worked 16–17 hours a day to earn $1.25 to $2.00 a week. Despite the odds, some women challenged the employers. Their first organization was as an auxiliary, the Daughters of Liberty in 1765. In 1825, the women organized and called themselves the United Tailoresses of New York. Strikes occurred over the years, and some were successful.

For more background information on the timeline, history and background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States

http://www.laborhistorylinks.niu.edu/~rfeurer/labor/indexpage.html

The growth and organization of labor unions is available in the 2 links above:

The Labor union movement has always been led by Socialist’s advocating the communist doctrine, the list of prominent leaders in the union movement is littered with their philosophies.

Samuel Gompers: “"We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge;”

Eugene Debs: "The earth is for all the people. That is the demand. The machinery of production and distribution for all the people. That is the demand. The collective ownership and control of industry and its democratic management in the interest of all the people. That is the demand. "

Lucy Parsons: "The great strike of May 1886 was an historical event of great importance, inasmuch as it was the first time that the workers themselves had attempted to get a shorter workday by united, simultaneous action. This strike was the first in the nature of Direct Action on a large scale. Of course the eight-hour day is as antiquated as the craft unions themselves. Today we should be agitating for a five-hour workday."

Fannie Sellins

Mother Jones

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Rose Schneiderman

Frank Little: "I don't give a damn what country your country is fighting, I am fighting for the solidarity of labor."

A. Philip Randolph: "The combination of black and white workers will be a powerful lesson to the capitalists of the solidarity of labor. It will show that labor, black and white, is conscious of its interests and power. This will prove that unions are not based upon race lines, but upon class lines. This will serve to convert a class of workers, which has been used by the capitalist class to defeat organized labor, into an ardent, class conscious, intelligent, militant group."

Harry Bridges: "There will always be a place for us somewhere, somehow, as long as we see to it that working people struggle on, fight for everything they have, everything they hope to get, for dignity, equality, democracy, to oppose war and to bring to the world a better life."

These are just some of the leaders in the labor union movement who helped form their political ideology and transform the unions into powerful political lobbying machines. But there was something missing, a triggering effect, a catastrophe that would demonize their enemy the evil capitalist system that oppresses the working class.

The stock market crashed in October, 1929, and ushered in the Great Depression. By the winter of 1932-33, the economy was so perilous that the unemployment rate hit the 25 percent mark.Unions lost members during this time because laborers could not afford to pay their dues and furthermore, numerous strikes against wage cuts left the unions impoverished: “…one might have expected a reincarnation of organizations seeking to overthrow the capitalistic system that was now performing so poorly. Some workers did indeed turn to such radical movements as Communism, but, in general, the nation seemed to have been shocked into inaction.”Though unions were not acting yet, cities across the nation witnessed local and spontaneous marches by frustrated relief applicants. In March, 1930, hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers marched through New York City, Detroit, Washington, San Francisco and other cities in a mass protest organized by the Communist Party’s Unemployed Councils. In 1931, more than 400 relief protests erupted in Chicago and that number grew to 550 in 1932. The leadership behind these organizations often came from radical groups like Communists and Socialists, who wanted to organize “unfocused neighborhood militancy into organized popular defense organizations.” Workers turned to these radical groups until organized labor became more active in 1932, with the passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act.

On March 23, 1932, President Herbert Hoover signed what became known as the Norris-La Guardia Act, marking the first of many pro-union bills that Washington would pass in the 1930s. Also known as the Anti-Injunction Bill, it offered procedural and substantive protections against the easy issuance of court injunctions during labor disputes, which had limited union behavior in the 1920s.Although the act only applied to federal courts, numerous states would pass similar acts in the future. Additionally, the act outlawed yellow-dog contracts, which were documents some employers forced their employees to sign to ensure they would not join a union; employees who refused to sign were terminated from their jobs.

The passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act signified a victory for the American Federation of Labor, which had been lobbying Congress to pass it for slightly more than five years. It also marked a large change in public policy. Up until the passage of this act, the collective bargaining rights of workers were severely hampered by judicial control. It signifies the political ideology of the Democratic party in control at the time, progressive Socialism.

This was not always the case, the actual history of the Democrat party is actually one that was born from a pro-capitalism and anti-labor stance. :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)

The Democratic Party evolved from Anti-Federalist factions that opposed the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton in the early 1790s. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into the Democratic-Republican Party. The party favored states' rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank and wealthy, moneyed interests. The Democratic-Republican Party ascended to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the party's chief rival, the Federalist Party disbanded. Democratic-Republicans split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe, and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party. Along with the Whig Party, the Democratic Party was the chief party in the United States until the Civil War. The Whigs were a commercial party, and usually less popular, if better financed. The Whigs divided over the slavery issue after the Mexican–American War and faded away. In the 1850s, under the stress of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party. Joining with former members of existing or dwindling parties, the Republican Party emerged.

The Democrats split over the choice of a successor to President James Buchanan along Northern and Southern lines, while the Republican Party gained ascendancy in the election of 1860. As the American Civil War broke out, Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats. The Confederate States of America, seeing parties as evils, did not have any. Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party in 1864, which put Andrew Johnson on the ticket as a Democrat from the South. Johnson replaced Lincoln in 1865 but stayed independent of both parties . The Democrats benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction after the war and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. After Redeemers ended Reconstruction in the 1870s, and the extremely violent disenfranchisement of African Americans took place in the 1890s, the South, voting Democratic, became known as the "Solid South." Though Republicans won all but two presidential elections, the Democrats remained competitive. The party was dominated by pro-business Bourbon Democrats led by Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland, who represented mercantile, banking, and railroad interests; opposed imperialism and overseas expansion; fought for the gold standard; opposed bimetallism; and crusaded against corruption, high taxes, and tariffs. Cleveland was elected to non-consecutive presidential terms in 1884 and 1892.

Agrarian Democrats demanding Free Silver overthrew the Bourbon Democrats in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency (a nomination repeated by Democrats in 1900 and 1908). Bryan waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern moneyed interests, but he lost to Republican William McKinley. The Democrats took control of the House in 1910 and elected Woodrow Wilson as president in 1912 and 1916. Wilson effectively led Congress to put to rest the issues of tariffs, money, and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years with new progressive laws. The Great Depression in 1929 that occurred under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government; the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1931 until 1995 and won most presidential elections until 1968. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to the presidency in 1932, came forth with government programs called the New Deal.

New Deal liberalism meant the promotion of social welfare, labor unions, civil rights, and regulation of business. The opponents, who stressed long-term growth, support for business, and low taxes, started calling themselves “conservatives”. So as you can see almost every law supporting unions and their Socialized labor movement have been created and passed under Democratically controlled government in the last 100 years.

Government gave the labor unions in this country their first pro-union edict protecting collective bargaining, and in doing so opened Pandora’s box allowing for more and greater bargaining rights and a greater power base forcing many workers who would have never joined a union, to do so, also forcing many companies into the slow death of spiraling labor costs.

Since the 1890s, the Democratic Party has favored liberal positions (the term "liberal" in this sense describes social liberalism, not classical liberalism). In recent exit polls, the Democratic Party has had broad appeal across all socio-ethno-economic demographics. Historically, the party has favored farmers, laborers, labor unions, and religious and ethnic minorities; it has opposed unregulated business and finance, and favored progressive income taxes. In foreign policy, internationalism (including interventionism) was a dominant theme from 1913 to the mid-1960s. In the 1930s, the party began advocating welfare spending programs targeted at the poor. The party had a pro-business wing, typified by Al Smith, and a Southern conservative wing that shrank after President Lyndon B. Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The major influences for liberalism were labor unions (which peaked in the 1936–1952 era), and the African American wing, which has steadily grown since the 1960s. Since the 1970s, environmentalism has been a major new component.

Since the 1930s, a critical component of the Democratic Party coalition has been organized labor. Labor unions supply a great deal of the money, grass roots political organization, and voting base of support for the party. Democrats are far more likely to be represented by unions, although union membership has declined, in general, during the last few decades. This trend is depicted in the following graph from the book, Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality. It is based on surveys conducted by the National Election Studies (NES).

While the American working class has lost much of its political strength with the decline of labor unions, it remains a stronghold of the Democratic Party and continues as an essential part of the Democratic base. Today, roughly a third of the American public is estimated to be working class with around 52% being either members of the working or lower classes. Yet, as those with lower socioeconomic status are less likely to vote, the working and lower classes are underrepresented in the electorate. The working class is largely distinguished by highly reutilized and closely supervised work. It consists mainly of clerical and blue-collar workers. Even though most in the working class are able to afford an adequate standard of living, high economic insecurity and possible personal benefit from an extended social safety net, make the majority of working class person left-of-center on economic issues. Most working class Democrats differ from most liberals, however, in their more socially conservative views. Working class Democrats tend to be more religious and likely to belong to an ethnic minority. Socially conservative and disadvantaged Democrats are among the least educated and lowest earning ideological demographics. In 2005, only 15% had a college degree, compared to 27% at the national average and 49% of liberals, respectively. Together socially conservative and the financially disadvantaged comprised roughly 54% of the Democratic base.The continued importance of the working class votes manifests itself in recent CNN exit polls, which shows that the majority of those with low incomes and little education vote for the Democratic Party.

And as the above chart demonstrates these are the core demographics of an easily manipulated group.

All through the 30’s and 40’s and 50’s and 60’ and up until the 70’s the unions Socialist agenda were held in check by the mob influence at the top. The famous battles between Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Kennedy even before the 1960 election showed that despite their business model of murder the mobs kept the socialist’s to a small non–leadership role in the unions. The Teamsters union was expelled from the AFL for its notorious corruption under president Dave Beck. Its troubles gained national attention from highly visible Senate hearings led by Robert Kennedy in the late 1950s. The target was Jimmy Hoffa, (1913–75), who replaced Beck and held total power until he was imprisoned in 1964. For Republicans in the 1950s the campaign against labor racketeering offered a chance to peel the working-class vote away from the Democratic Party by politically dividing union members from their leadership. The culmination of this trend came in the late 1950s during the McClellan Committee hearings, which was the largest congressional investigation up to that time. Those hearings transformed Teamsters president Hoffa into a potent symbol of the danger posed by labor racketeering. The committee's revelations and the publicity they received undercut the labor movement. Polls showed growing public skepticism toward unions, and especially union leaders. Such attitudes helped conservatives win a new round of legislative restrictions on organized labor in the form of the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959).

Again what this demonstrates is the union members ease at being manipulated and fooled, that is why they have become enamored with the Democrat party and are now under real socialist leadership, in the of people like Richard Trumka and Andy Stern.

Richard Louis Trumka (born July 24, 1949) is an organized labor leader in the United States. He was elected President of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009, at the labor federation's convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, from 1995 to 2009, and prior to that was President of the United Mine Workers from 1982 to December 22, 1995.

And the former head of the Service Employees International Union:

Andrew L. "Andy" Stern (born November 22, 1950), is the former president of the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the fastest-growing union in the Americas. SEIU is the second largest union in the United States and Canada after the National Education Association. Stern was elected in 1996 to succeed John Sweeney. Stern is intent upon influencing federal legislation that helps revitalize the labor movement through universal health care, expanding union ranks via the Employee Free Choice Act,stronger regulations on business, profit sharing for employees, higher taxes, and efforts consistent with the improvement of the lives of workers.

And their political influence now incorporates 2 of the 3 branches of our federal government, the two branches that are elected by popular vote.

And what you say is their agenda? This is all part of the work of Karl Marx:

Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, and communist revolutionary, who was responsible for the development of Marxism. Through this philosophy, he has been a hugely influential figure, primarily upon the socialist and communist movements.

Born into a middle class family in Triers, then a part of Prussia, he attended university at both Bonn and Berlin, where he became interested in philosophy, getting involved in the Young Hegelian movement. Becoming a vocal critic of the autocratic Prussian government, he moved to Paris where he agitated for the socialist movement.

He wrote a number of important works on the subject, most notably the political pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (1848) and his seminal critique of capitalist society, Capital (1867).

As a socio-economic worldview, Marxism holds that history has been dominated by class struggle, with this struggle having been the cause of all social change in the past. He argued that human society had progressed through a series of stages, from an egalitarian form of "primitive communism" to a slave-based society, then a feudal society, and then on to a capitalism society. He believed that in turn, capitalism would be replaced by socialism, when a "dictatorship of the proletariat", also known as a "workers state" or "workers' democracy", would be introduced. Marx believed that in turn this would eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called pure communism.

While Marx remained a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas and the ideology of Marxism began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. This influence gained added impetus with the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution in 1917, and few parts of the world remained significantly untouched by Marxian ideas in the course of the twentieth century. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. In 1999, a BBC poll revealed that Marx had been voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world.

Again this chart clearly shows how the demographics of the Democrat party are the same as Marx eschewed as being the base of the “workers movement” the working classes that comprise 84% of their party and 100% of the modern labor unions. There is no mistaking the alignment between the two.

The total number of private and public sector union members makes up less than 12% of the total American workforce yet they but make up 36.2% of public sector employment or 1 out of every 3 state, county or city employees in America belongs to a union you and I now subsidize! Again if that is not what Marx was describing with the dictatorship of the proletariat the “workers democracy” then what does?

As members of private sector unions the media in this country will never expose the facts on these people because they are in it with them!

Media unions, societies and associations - US

American Association of Sunday and Features Editors
Association dedicated to maintaining the quality of features in newspapers and the craft of feature writing.

American Society of Journalists and Authors
Association of independent non-fiction writers aiding in career development of freelance writers.

American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME)
A non-profit professional organization for editors of print and online magazines.
American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE)
A membership organization for daily news editors and associates.
Asian American Journalists Associationn
Educational organization serving Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders encouraging careers in journalism.
Associated Press Managing Editors
Association of editors at newspapers in the United States and Canada
Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors
Organization for reporters covering state and local governments in the USA.
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN)
Association of 131 alternative weekly news publications covering North America, promoting alternative journalism.
Education Writers Association
National professional organization of education reporters, covering the USA and Canada.
Illinois News Broadcasters Association
State association promoting freedom and exchange of information, providing education and scholarships.
Kentucky Press Association
Membership organisation promoting ethics, endeavor and fraternity amongst its members.
National Association of Black Journalists
Provides quality programs and services to and advocates on behalf of black journalists worldwide.

National Association of Hispanic Journalists
US association dedicated to the recognition and professional advancement of Hispanics in the news industry.
National Conference of Editorial Writers
Foundation providing funds and running vents for editorial and opinion writers.
National Federation of Press Women
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
US organization Promoting and defending LGBT journalists in the workplace
National Press Photographers Association
Dedicated to the advancement of visual journalism, its creation, practice, training, editing and distribution, in all news media.
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
Membership organization promoting professionalism and camaraderie among North American newspaper columnists.

Native American Journalists Association
Promotes and defends Native American journalism and culture

The Newspaper Guild (USA)
Promotes ethical journalism and the interests of its members which span across the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico.
Public Radio News Broadcasters Inc.
A non-profit professional association that exists to improve local news and information programming by serving public radio journalists.

The following are links to every national union with 16 representing the media:http://www.unions.org/

The following are known communist organizations or ones with serious ties to them, see which ones are unions and media: http://www.commieblaster.com/communists/index.html

Communist Unions: SEIU (Eliseo Medina 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) (SEIU thugs attack 1, 2) (illegal immigrants) (Obama worked for SEIU ) (Gerry Hudson, EVP), AFL-CIO (1, 2, 3), UNITE HERE, Blue Diamond Workers Organizing Committee, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Change to Win, United Farm Workers of America (Dolores Huerta), United Steel Workers of America (1, 2), Chicago Teamsters Union, National Health & Human Services Union, Workers Party of Brazil, Party of Democratic Socialism of Germany.

Communist Organizations: Progressive Party, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Progressives for Obama, Progressive Democrats of America, Weather Underground, Chicago DSA, Communist Party, Black Radical Congress, Black Panthers, Committees of Correspondence, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), New Party, Chicago New Party, Mexican American Equality Commission, Communist Party USA, Boston DSA, National Lawyers Guild, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, The Chicago Peace Council, US Peace Council, Chicago Young Communist League, Marxists of Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, Young Democratic Socialists, DSA's Anti Racism and Latino Commissions, Young Communist League USA, National Alliance Against Racial and Political Repression, Women's Strike for Peace and Council, Chicago Peace Council, Illinois Public Action, World Federation of Democratic Youth, USAction, United Power for Action and Justice, Students for a Democratic Society, Venceremos Brigades, Movement for a Democratic Society, Students for a Democratic Society, League of Revolutionaries for a New America, Afro Latino Network, Du Bois Network, NAACP, Women of Color Resource Center, Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama, Religion and Socialism Commission, Crossroads Fund, Ad Hoc Committee on Chicago Police Torture, Feminist Response in Disability Activism, Female Storytellers Igniting Revolution to End Violence, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (Formerly Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation), Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights and Jobs with Justice, Chicago Communist Party, Rabbis for Obama, Black Advisory Council, Institute for Policy Studies, American Peace Mobilization, Cesar Chavez National Holiday, Green For All, Ella J. Baker Human Rights Center, Socialist Scholars Conference, TransAfrica, POWER-People Organized to Win Employment Rights, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Apollo Alliance (the organization that drafted the Stimulus Plan, the Healthcare Bill and the House Energy Bill), Woods Fund for Chicago, Chicago City Council, Congressional Black Caucus, National Preparatory Committee for the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Independent Voters of Illinois, Columbia University, African-American Human Rights Foundation, AFSCME, Illinois ACLU, Black Panthers, Chuck Collins-Demos, Illinois Project Vote, Friends of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo, "The Mob".

This list is just the tip of the iceberg, the number of groups and organizations is in the thousands! But several should stand out as being very influential, in the fact they are heavily involved with our current regime or the labor movement. So the left and the media and the Obama regime can all cry “wolf” that they are not socialists and or communists but their actions and their protests speak otherwise.

I do not want to downplay my fathers generation’s struggle in WWII, but we now face a crisis that if not stopped, will surpass their struggle and victory over the oppression and tyranny of the Axis Powers . We must not stop fighting the socialism that is strangling our way of life with the truth of their words and deeds. We must fight for a free and sovereign United States of America with our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and our Declaration of Independence as it’s Sacred Covenants!

In Liberty,

Dr. Keith C. Westbrook Ph.D.

"Fore" from Gainesville, Florida

The Conservative Party Principles

Monday, February 21, 2011

Unions: The History of Their Socialist Agenda!

Their hand in hand socialist march with the Democrat party in American History.

Fannie Sellins

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