Hipolito Navarrete, Managing Editor/Publisher

At a time when all has been turned upside down, Labor Day reminds us to be more optimistic and to look past the dark moment we are living through in 2018. The labor movement needs the likes of Dolores Huerta, Eugene Debs, Cesar Chavez and those that have a heart for those that toil every day trying to eek a better life for their families through sacrifice and hard work.

The oligarchs have come to power and under the support of a rapacious government, they are taking all they can from the general public because they feel the paychecks they provide folks that work for them or the taxes they pay as a corporation are an unfair therefore, they should have the ability to raid the public moneys that are supposed to be available for the welfare of the nations citizens.

There are some wins for unions and this year the defeat in Missouri for the GOP backed right to work law was a reminder that people must continue to fight to protect themselves from some that would have them work themselves to the bone in order to have a good paying job that helps their family. The lesson of that win is simple, show up to the fight and stay true to the collective bargaining process. We must always make sure that we always must always dignify the work of those that feed us, build our homes, teach out children and build our future, its not the owners or the oligarchs who pick the fields, they are the ones that at this moment want to go back to the days of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

Cesar Chavez said; “if we wanted to remember me, organize.” The disputes that have been fostered by opinion pundits has worked in making the blue collar workers and laborers to distrust and in some cases hate each other, to the point that some are willing to suffer as long as they are right. There is a chasm that can be crossed if we spoke to each other past our own personal experiences, we must learn to dialogue in order to maintain the power that unity brings for the benefit of all of us. We all know and experience the benefits the union movement brought us, better wages, reasonable working hours and safer conditions.  

We must always remember that the people united can never be defeated.