Stephen Lerner, the architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign, is a Labor and Community Organizer and helped found the Bargaining for Common Good Network. He recently penned a Labor Perspective that appeared In These Times, which read - in part: Labor faces a contradictory, paradoxical moment. On one hand looms an existential threat, on the other an historic opening. Despite an upsurge in recent Organizing and Strikes, Union Density has continued its historic decline - from 35% of the Private Sector in 1955, to 5.9% today and only 9.9% overall. With the election of Donald Trump and his billionaire backers, buddies and beneficiaries, Unions face potential annihilation, as Trump shreds Federal Sector Collective Bargaining Agreements and Elon Musk and other employers challenge the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board itself. At the same time, the country as a whole is more Pro-Union than at any time in a half-century. And we can count on Trump and his cronies to make the best case in years for the need for a Union resurgence as they cut taxes for themselves, siphon even greater wealth to the super-rich and cut budgets and services to our communities - thereby creating conditions that make a Labor resurgence both more attractive and - as counterintuitive as it might sound in this fraught moment - more possible. We need to drive a wedge between the elites by demonstrating through disruption of business as usual that attacking Workers, Immigrants and People of Color has a direct economic consequence. We need to make billionaires and corporations feel the pain that they are inflicting on all of us.

To Continue Reading This Labor Perspective, Go To: For Labor, Caution Is Fatal - In These Times

Photo Courtesy Of SEIU International’s Facebook Page.