Text of KC Labor Labor Notes handout

Analysis, Advocacy, Action Since 2000

kclabor.org

For Class & Climate Justice

A 2009 KC Labor Conference Partnered With Troublemakers School

Greetings to 2014 Labor Notes Conference Participants

Since we went online in March, 2000 kclabor.org has been a promoter of Labor Notes and Labor Notes Conferences. In 2009 we partnered with Troublemaker Schools for a weekend conference in Kansas City. The magazine and gatherings do an excellent job in bringing news, information, and ideas for action to thousands of working class activists in the USA and around the world. As Minnie Pearl used to say, we're mighty proud to be here.

Based in Kansas City, kclabor.org is an independent, noncommercial, volunteer driven site. To keep it that way we accept no grants or paid advertising. Since we don't sell visitor information to anyone, no registration is required. We have no paywall around our content. We depend solely on voluntary contributions from visitors to sustain our project.

Our Mission

We say we are for Class and Climate Justice. In today's world we can't get one without the other.

When it comes to class, we're strictly old school. We believe social, economic and political issues revolve around the conflict of interests between the bosses and bankers, who call the shots in both economy and government, versus the working class majority. We work to reclaim our class identity that has been taken from us and revive interest in our proud heritage of class struggle.

Our site features news and analysis of current battles in the workplace, community, and electoral arenas. We are grateful to Doug Bonney, long time labor attorney in Kansas City, now Chief Counsel and Legal Director of the Kansas/Western Missouri ACLU, for providing 23 labor law articles on our Know Your Rights page. Mary Erio, a free lance Certified Industrial Hygienist, put together a useful page on workplace safety and health issues. We have other resource pages devoted to Labor History, Labor Culture, a Directory of North American unions, and much more.

From time to time, we sponsor live audience forums and conferences in the Kansas City area. Our webmaster writes a weekly column, cleverly titled Week In Review, distributed through RSS and e-mail to readers around the world.

'without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn!'

Working Class Politics

The issues of war, climate change, unemployment, education, immigration and human rights that affect working people's lives can't be resolved by the best of unions. Even health care and retirement security—needs guaranteed for all by law in most industrialized countries--have become the most contentious issues in collective bargaining, eating up more and more of our compensation package. While workplace and community struggles are more important than ever, they are limited to fighting isolated defensive battles as long as the bosses and bankers maintain a monopoly of all things political.

It's not just the cracked tea-pots dominating the Republicans that threaten us. The present administration is the most reactionary in living memory undermining public education and teacher unions; wrecking the US Postal Service; strengthening the stranglehold of the insurance robber barons on health care; and trying their best to get the Republicans to join in slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They have deported record numbers of immigrant workers and are negotiating new NAFTA-like deals in the Pacific Basin and with the European Union. Perfidious “friends” can get away with doing a lot more damage than our declared enemies.

The working class majority instinctively grasps this better than most of the leaders of our mass movements. They have no confidence in the twin party political Establishment. A Gallup Poll last Fall showed “60 percent of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed.”

An even more important indicator of change in the air was the showing by the small Socialist Alternative Party in two municipal elections last Fall. Kshama Sawant garnered more than 93,000 votes in her Seattle City Council victory over an incumbent Democrat and Ty Moore fell only a few votes short of winning a Council seat in Minneapolis. These impressive results for working class candidates deserve not only praise but emulation.

From Day One, kclabor.org was a staunch supporter of the Labor Party and provided a web page to the Kansas City Chapter. The once promising Labor Party, founded at a convention of 1400 mainly union activists in 1996, eventually succumbed to starvation of needed union material support. The Kansas City chapter relaunched itself as Labor Party Advocates, and has been reaching out to other areas to keep the labor party idea alive. LPA supporters are actively organizing in Arizona and Oregon and there is sentiment in many other places.

The Bosses Have Two Parties—We Need One Of Our Own!

Climate Justice

Unlike class, there is no old school for Climate Justice. It's only been in the past few decades that scientists have come to recognize that the upper atmosphere accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels was heating up our planet and that if left unchecked this would bring unwelcome changes in climate.

This is no longer simply a theory. It is best science that is being verified in plain sight in melting polar and glacial ice, extreme weather events, and many other ways—none of them good for living things including humans. It is the biggest challenge humanity has yet faced and it's reached a stage of emergency.

Scientists have done their job by not only giving us fair warning but also offering alternatives that can stop climate change short of climate disaster. These include utilizing unlimited clean, renewable energy sources available wherever the sun shines and the winds blow.

But scientists don't run society—bosses, bankers, and brass hats do. This class that rules has an enormous stake in the profits flowing from a fossil fuel dependent society. There's little concern about the fate of future generations among those solely fixed on today's bottom line. They dispute the science and threaten workers with massive job loss if the “tree huggers” get their way.

We have to be honest--many jobs will be eliminated as we work to save a sustainable biosphere. But the work required for restructuring our energy, transportation, housing, agriculture, and much more to stop global warming will be the biggest job creator in history, lasting for generations. We have to make sure this transformation is governed by the principle of Just Transition. Society must offer retraining and relocation, while guaranteeing uninterrupted living standards, to those whose jobs have been eliminated for the good of society until they can be reemployed in suitable new jobs.

To undertake these mammoth tasks requires a mobilization of society on a scale even bigger than what was done during World War II. We will need a Climate Emergency Public Sector to take charge of key industries and finance and run them according to a plan devised by scientists, environmentalists, and economists--and managed in the workplace by elected worker representatives. Union contracts would be honored and union organizing encouraged.

To fight for such a perspective we urgently need to build a working class-led environmental movement. We hope this will be part of the discussion at this conference—and in union meetings, community gatherings, and workplace break rooms until we get the job done.

For A Just Transition to a Sustainable Society!

Other Projects We're Promoting...

Keep the Buses Rolling—Union

As in many cities around the country, there is a serious privatization attack on public transit in Kansas City. Hundreds of “middle class” jobs at one of the few employers that has been hiring African-Americans are in imminent danger. ATU Local 1287, with strong support from the International Union, is mobilizing members, riders, and community allies, including Jobs with Justice, in a campaign to save union Metro bus service. This project is of special interest to our webmaster who is a retired Metro driver and former Vice-President of Local 1287.

Fifteen and a Union

The strikes and demonstrations by fast food and retail workers across North America have been felt in Kansas City as well. The solidarity they have generated not only helps the working poor; they have also stirred a lethargic organized labor movement. We are also paying close attention to a vibrant struggle in the state of Washington to win a minimum wage of fifteen dollars.

Check Us Out

We hope when you return home you will check out our site at kclabor.org.

Take a look at our Week In Review feature at kclabor.org/wordpress

Sign up for RSS or e-mail updates

If you have any questions or comments contact Bill Onasch at: webmaster@kclabor.org

Solidarity!