America and the labor party.
Organized labor rose in the united states in the 20th century when the CIO (Congress of United Organization) in the early 1930s and later the reunification phenomenon with the AFL (American Federation of Labor) at the time of the world war two. The rise of the powerful movements of labor brought big changes in the political realignments, industrial relations and the increase in labor wages and better conditions for work in America these movements further contributed to the African-Americans and the women at the work place which was never there before. These organized labor also contributed towards progressive social organizations and movements, not forgetting the civil rights struggle in the 1960s. these organized labor groups formed with a common goal often confronted the state authorities and the managements in collective bargain for their rights, there were uncommon political and social conditions brought forward by the depression and war at that time which sped up the formation and growth of more unions to fight for policies in favor of the unionization this is the growth of the ALF. As a result the Wilson and Roosevelt administrations promoted the pro-union policies to increase production at wartime. The UAW-GM agreement of the 1940 was industries model regulator, in about five years other industries followed suit, and this led to industry democratization. These labor movements supported the governments at times of war in production in ensuring constant production and supply of arms to the military during the war and this assisted the US government and its friends against the genocidal objectives of the German Nazi and expansionists and the imperial Japan. In the year 1987 was little hope for the reemergence of the labor party unions like the rainbow coalition were being predicted to be active again. The AFL-CIO director predicted that there is no essence or some strength in forming a political party from the unions. At that time the Rainbow Coalition showed no signs of reemerging though real and the Labor Party had did in the 1930s, despite this a number of labor union officials were committed to these parties. OACAW (Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Union) and its secretary-Treasurer spearheaded an ambition to form a labor party. The Rainbow dissipated, credit to the huge measures to the illusionist made on the Democratic Party, from then the independent party idea began to pick up.There was a massive competition or number such kinds of labor parties working on different principles and party policies such as the New Yorks Working Families, the Rainbow Coalition, and the labor party among others.
Analyzing one of the recorded struggles or most famous labor political party like the Labor Party had other challenges like lack of support from the union leaders form organizations like the AFT, AFSCME, the UAW though they looked forward to the support of Al Gore in the year 1997. The state required that such labor parties present a substantive organizing plan, draft some party by-laws by the committee representatives, approved then circulated. In 1996 the national office gave recounting to five such Labor Parties which in most cases the union activists and the union staffs. There are a number of criteria see that the parties have to meet to be considered a fully chartered state party criteria speaking to full new development levels.
Labor has always created political parties in almost all the capitalist nations except the united states, this was the phenomenon in the 19th and the 20th centuries in other countries a number of questions have always been debated why this kind of phenomenon existed. In the late 19th century the American Union was close to establishing a labor party, a political program was under discussion by American Federation of Labor that was looking forward to committing this union to a political action that was independent the party leaders used a number of mechanizations to stop the political activities into the union. A year later the organization delegates voted overwhelmingly and implemented a resolution to reject party politics whether democratic, republican, socialists, prohibition, or any other, should have no place in the convention of the A.F. of L. in addition to that more conventions against any kind of partisan political activities.
Labor party formation failure in the US is also attributed to American Exceptionalism debate, which is distinct of the society and politics in America. Americans of course have great interest in the understanding of the distinctive nature of its ideological and institutional traditions in their society and politics.
A more clear understanding of why there is no labor parties in the US can be got from comparison to Europe. The united states characteristics like the well developed democracy, high living standards in America, and the American liberal individualism culture is more advanced than Europes and this shows that America have more experience and can make better decisions and policies which are also evident in their books, scholars debates and the public commentaries.
The mouseland story was told by Clarence Gillis, Tommy Douglas, and later Canadas New Democratic Party which were both the social democratic parties. Mouseland was a Fable explaining the CCFs opinion that the political system in Canada was false in providing their voters a false dilemma a choice between two parties where none of the two represented their problems and interests. The moral of the story was that mice, person can be imprisoned but an idea whose time has come cannot be stopped. There were other versions of the mouseland story like the Douglas Adams which included a democracy where the voters voted for lizards as their trusted leaders, only the lizards can be happy in such situations though they continue to give votes to lizards because not voting for the lizard means that the wrong lizard will occupy the seat. (Mouseland Video)
According to Michael Yates unions matter in the society because they are the source of more benefits to the employee, unions bring reality to better pay to the workers and above all the unions fight for better working conditions.. The unions have mechanisms to force the employers to treat the workers with due respect and dignity, the union at its best, they make available for the workers to make community more egalitarian and democratic. He further explains the role the union plays in politics is unavoidable. He generally explains and substantiates the significance of collective bargains.
Labor Best Strategies in todays Political System
One of the challenges the labor unions face in the political system is the low voter turn out of the workers. Americans do not turn out to take part in the voting exercises because of a number of reasons, basically the costs involved in the voting processes in terms of time and distances to be travelled to the voting locations. The more reasonable response to this challenge by the government is making the voting stations more accessible and available to the voter.
Some people are legally locked out from voting because they are not registered voters this can be corrected by relaxing the registration laws for the voter. The highly educated (formal) individuals and the politically informed individuals are expected to vote in larger numbers than their uninformed counterparts.
HYPERLINK httpen.wikipedia.orgwikiFileTurnout.png INCLUDEPICTURE CUsersuserDesktop2Voter_turnout_filesTurnout.png MERGEFORMATINET
Change in voter turnout over time for five selected countries
Sociological (social trusts, efficacy and political trust) and the socio-economic factors (education and money) contribute to a persons political life or participation. Because the highly educated individuals operate in very high social surroundings they are likely to participate more in political activities than the low status or class individuals. The people who place a lot of trust in the government bodies are definitely to participate more in politics than those who have less trust in the government generally. A reason that therefore relates to voter turnout and the government trust affects the workers involvement in voting activities.
Choosing of the right candidate in the elections is another challenge of the labor unions. The chosen political candidate definitely is major determining factor in the elections and should be carried out with a lot of caution. The political arties align their candidates alongside the party policies the voters uses the policies to judge the best candidate, those with the best policies favoring the voter have an edge over the other on the vote.
The unions post bankruptcy strategy should be basically to stand firm as they engage the management meaning that the union should integrate, interact and advance the overall interests by meeting, talking to and challenging the company or government top executives and top managers using united tactics or services and corporation
The union leaders of the conglomerates companies should make international or global alliance with the workers posted in other countries. This is because when a project to push for some union agenda is being pushed in the United States, for example launching a workers strike, the employers reach out to the employees in other states to gain solidarity. It is very vital that when labor union fights back, other workers should come in and rally on to the union support.
Some conventional ideas and wisdom suggests that members of the union are likely to be more politically active hence vote unlike the nonmembers. Same results show that are more likely to turn out to vote in large numbers than the non union members, the results further show that the when the union puts pressure in campaigning generally increases the voter turnout during the general elections
The union labor political parties majorly depend on the ability and the will of the workers who are also members to vote. It is argued that the turnouts in most of the American elections have always been very low at the national levels. The labor unions have a niche and can take advantage of this by affecting voting outcomes disproportionately incase the participation of the members of the union and their relatives is above the country average.
The unions have tried their best challenging the democrats through the use of money, they have used a lot of money the last general elections. There have been a number of analysis on the use of money and the voter turn outs by a number of agencies for example by the Kim Moody there is always an inverse correlation existing between spending money and in the general elections and the organizing union conducts campaign.
The labor union has taken full commitment by the members there is no magnetic pull to the union activities. The attendances records in the union meetings are very low. High attendances are always seen only at the time of union elections or some important or special meetings. Some of the officials in the union committees lack commitments to their duties. This is maybe because of lack of motivational factors and incentives to the officials. The members may also not attend the argent meetings due to a number of reasons when they see no benefits the union achieves, fear of victimization, the high ranking employees never commit to their unions, the eye promotion and they see union as committing suicide to promotion.
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