Radical Labor Organizer Joe Hill: When Unions had vision
When I joined a union at the university where I was a counselor, I proposed to the union shop steward that the unions across the university ought to unite as one union. I explained that we would have more power that way. He looked at me like I was crazy. This is a sad example of what passes for union leadership today. There are no significant unions in the United States which have vision. The best they can do is to moralize that capitalists ought to be more fair. There is no vision of how working class people should manage their work places and decide what to produce and when to produce it. This article is an example of one of the many workers 100 years ago who saw further and deeper than all the current union leaders put together. May a thousand Joe Hills bloom!
About The Author
Barbara
Barbara MacLean has worked as an academic and career counselor at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB), Merritt and West Valley Colleges and as a career counselor and manager of the Oakland One Stop Career Center, a public career and jobs center in partnership with EDD. She is a co-founder and editor of Planning Beyond Capitalism.