Why You Should Join the WIIU

Layoffs, speedup, lower wages, less benefits, mandatory overtime, on-the-job harassment, company snitches, armed security to watch over us, and so on and so on.

It seems that every day we as workers are expected to deal with more and more while getting back less and less. If the bosses’ profits fall, we’re expected to pay for it. If the bosses’ economy goes bust, we’re expected to pay for it. If the bosses want to close up shop and move somewhere else, we’re expected to pay for it.

On top of that, we as workers are seen as criminals or potential criminals. If something goes missing, we’re suspected of taking it. If something goes wrong, we’re blamed for the problem.

No matter what we do, where we go or how we act, we get the business end of the stick.

Why is that? Why are we — the ones to produce everything in this world and make sure it gets to those who need or want it — the ones treated like we’re less than human, like garbage or, to use a term that professors like, “surplus population?” What did we do to deserve all this?

The answer is nothing. We workers have done nothing wrong and don’t deserve this treatment. And yet, that doesn’t stop the business end of the stick from being used against us.

So, what gives? In our view, it is because the society we live in is not for us, even though everything in it — the houses we live in, the cars we drive and the roads we drive on, the lights and the electricity that runs them, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the CDs we listen to and the players that play them, etc. — is made by us. We make it, but they, the bosses, claim to own it.

“‘Claim to own it,’ you say?” Yes. It’s a claim, backed up by armed thugs, slick-talking politicians, paid-for preachers and quite a few loyal union officials. They write the laws we’re supposed to live by and the history that’s supposed to show how everything is as it should be.

They own the political parties and the government, the cops, courts and jails, and the big churches, big schools and big lies that they teach us. This is their system. This is their claim.

But here’s how it really works. A boss wants to run a business. If he or she hasn’t already inherited one, the boss borrows money from someone who got it from skimming off the labor of workers. The boss then opens up a shop that is built by workers, furnished by workers and powered by workers. He or she then brings in workers to make the product, ship the product or sell the product. And all of us workers together produce, ship and sell so much in a day that we pay for our own wages, the salaries of our bosses, the cost of running the shop and keeping it maintained.

In fact, we produce, ship and sell so much that we usually cover these costs within the first few hours of being on the job. Some of us cover a week’s worth before the end of the first day.

Where does the rest of the money go? Into the pockets of the bosses as profit. The wealth we created with our collective labor is taken from us by someone who has built their entire “success” off of our labor, whether by inheriting the money from their parents who did the same thing, or by borrowing the money from others who pocketed the product of a lifetime of our work.

That is exploitation. It is the heart and soul of the bosses’ system — the capitalist system.

So what can we do about it? In our view, the first step is to organize ourselves. The bosses and their allies are organized, and the power of that kind of organization shows every day. The thing is, they are a minority in society. We as workers outnumber them two to one. But because we are disorganized — or, in some cases, are organized but saddled with “leaders” that work for them, not for us — they are able to set the terms and the limits by which we are forced to live.

Their system relies on us being disorganized. That way, they can continue to give us the “freedom to choose” between working for low pay, or poverty and starvation. In our view, that’s not a choice, that’s a threat. If we were organized, united together as One Great Union of all working people, that kind of a “choice” — that kind of phony, barbaric “freedom” — would not exist.

The Workers’ International Industrial Union is building that One Great Union of all workers. We want to bring together all of our brothers and sisters on the basis of one simple belief: Working people are entitled to all they produce! We make it, we ship it and we sell it, therefore we should decide together about every step in that process, and we should receive the full benefit from and value of our collective labor. And we run our Union like we want our society to run: where every worker has the right to come up with and present ideas, discuss, decide, and act on them.

The WIIU is not like those phony “rank-and-file leadership” unions where the rank and file’s only real role is to line up and vote for this or that self-appointed “leadership.” You are our leaders! From the steward on the workplace floor to the members of the Central Executive Committee, any member of the WIIU can run for and be elected to responsible positions in the Union.

We want our members to not only learn how to run a Union, but how to run their workplaces and how to run society. And this attitude and philosophy is reflected not only in how we run our Union, but also the place we see for the WIIU in our society. Our Union not only fights for the “bread-and-butter” issues of better wages and benefits, safer working conditions, and job security, but also looks ahead to the future, and prepares our members — and all of our brother and sister workers — to be leaders, to be empowered to take control of their jobs, their society, their future.

If we want something done right, we have to do it ourselves. If we as workers want a better life for ourselves, our families and our children, then we have to be the ones to make it happen. We cannot rely on union officials, who identify more with the bosses than with us, or on politicians from the Democratic or Republican parties, who are bought and paid for by the bosses, or on the bosses themselves, whose interests are fundamentally opposite of ours. If history and our own life experiences have taught us anything, it is that we as workers can only rely on ourselves, looking out for each other and our own, to build a better world and secure a decent future.

Why should you join the WIIU? Put simply, because you deserve better. You deserve the right to a decent life, to real liberty and to the ability to pursue true happiness. You deserve the right to build a better world for those you care about. You deserve the right to decide what to do with the product of your labor. You deserve all the good things in life because you made all of them. Why should you join the WIIU? Because we are you and you are us. Join your One Great Union!