[img]583|left|Eric L. Wattree||no_popup[/img]It is time for poor and middle-class workers to start fighting back. The corporate community has become increasingly prone to taking shortcuts on safety, creating hostile work environments, undercutting, even stealing, wages from gainfully employed workers in the name of grossly obscene profits.
These unconscionable practices in the name of ever more profits are not only having a negative impact on the quality of life of the poor and middle-class, but often, literally, sacrifice their very lives, as we've seen in an increasing number of cases. Consider the coal mine disaster in West Virginia that took the lives of 29 coal miners and the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, less than a month later, that took the lives of 11 oil workers.
Both of these “accidents” were avoidable, due to reckless penny-pinching by corporations.
What the corporate community is calling “unfortunate accidents” are not accidents at all. They are the corporate community's reckless response to the new global economy. Their attitude is having a devastating impact on the American middle-class standard of living, and an even worse impact on the poor.
What we once thought of as American corporations have now become international in scope. They have no loyalty to any one nation, nor respect for any geographical boundary. They are now competing with countries that pay their workers less per week than many American workers spend on lunch per day. As a result, the American middle-class standard of living has become a liability and is under an aggressive assault by both the corporate and governmental establishment.
Our Response? To Organize
Something has to be done.
In response to this attack on our quality of life, I recently have become associated with three gentlemen who share my belief that it is essential that the middle-class beat back this assault by every means at our disposal.
Lewis Maltby: Attorney, author (Can They Do That?), and former president of the Workers’ Rights Division of the ACLU. Lew is also current president of the National Workrights Institute.
Dr. Steve Musacco: Therapist, author (Beyond Going Postal), occupational psychologist, and 30-year veteran of the postal service, retired. Steve was involved in the development and implementation of both the Voice of the Employee Program and the Employee Assistance Program for the U.S. Postal Service.
Rick Owens: Publisher of the Postal Employee Network. Rick's publication reaches the workforce of the postal service's 600,000 employees. My name is Eric Wattree. I'm an author (A Message From the Hood), and I write a political column called Beneath the Spin. My column is carried in the Los Angeles Sentinel, New York's Black Star News, and several other publications in America's heartland. I'm also a staff writer for Veterans Today, a publication global in scope.
We have come together to establish a non-partisan organization called CARMA (Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse). We are developing a database to increase our numbers. We intend to consolidate and flex the political clout of poor and middle-class workers in a way that will be impossible for politicians, unions and the corporate media to ignore.
We intend to use our clout to address the reckless assault on the poor and middle-class through both political action and in the courts.
We will take no prisoners nor give any group a pass based on political concerns, be they corporations, unions or politicians.
We urge every American worker to become part of this important effort to defend poor and middle-class workers. If maintaining or enhancing your standard of living is important to you, please contact the email address below and become a part of our database. If you already are, please distribute this message to your family, friends and neighbors.
We don't need one voice speaking for millions; we need millions speaking with one voice.
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think and act like me. It’s just that God does.
