Hey Richard here. I'm with the blog Facts for Working People. The URL is We Know What's Up. Blogspot.com. No apostrophe, one word. And I was thinking a couple of things about the trade unions. I was active in the trade unions in the public sector for a long time, for 25, 30 years. And I was thinking of the recent AFL-CIO by annual, every two years they have this conference. The heads of the National Body of Organized Labor, the American Federation of Labor, Dash, Congress of Industrial Organizations. I won't go into the explaining how that became what it is. But that's the national body of the organized labor in the United States predominantly. And so they had a big meeting in June. And of course this is in the midst of a movement from below of the unorganized workers. Those working at Amazon, at Starbucks, at Apple. Only about 12% of the American working class is organized. If you take the public sector of which I came out, I came out of the public sector. We're talking, you know, six percent of the private sector is organized. And I'm turning this music down a bit. So they had this conference. And one of the major discussions at the conference was getting new members. Now of course getting new members for them, for the leadership of the organized labor in the United States who have a same world view as the employer, business unionism, business unionism they call it. They look at it as revenue. We need more members. That means more money. That means greater electoral clout and getting Democrats elected. In the United States we have just two political parties, both Wall Street, capitalist parties. And the trade union leadership are wedded to the Democratic Party in the main. Most of their members are not, which is why you get a hundred million people not voting in the 2016 election, for example. And so they had this, so what did they do? You think on a discussion of organizing, they would invite Christian Smalls, the guy that is one of the leaders of the Amazon Workers Union, organized on Staten Island, Layla Dalton and others who I can't name is happening so fast who are organizing unions within Starbucks. This is a huge development. It's a very positive development. It's as positive a development as the strikes that are taking place in the rail and in public in the public sector in Britain. And so they kept them out of the meeting. They didn't include these two leaders and other leaders in that of the unorganized workers in a meeting where the discussion was trying to get new members. And the reason for that is that the trade union leadership with top organized labor in the United States is bankrupt. It is historically bankrupt. It is bankrupt not so much because it's corrupt and rotten and taking bribes and all of that or earns too much money. All of those things are true. But their secondary factors, the predominant problem is that they see the world in the same way that the employer does as the capitalist does. They cannot see an alternative to capitalism. They cannot see the possibility that workers can govern. And for them to organize this power to bring these young militant youth really, a lot of the many of them street wise, into the movement is very very dangerous. Which is the same reason they suppress any movement within organized labor itself. It places pressure on them that the threatens the relationship they built over decades with the bosses based on labor peace and capitalism. They are becoming less and less more and more of an obstacle. They are they like the democratic and republican parties. Their historical era is done. But it's not that doesn't mean they don't have resources. And as I said in some of the articles I've written for the blog facts working people, the dangers for people like Christian Smalls, for Leila, Dalton, for the young people in Apple and Starbucks in the in Amazon is is now there being preyed upon. I've seen them with pictures with Dolores Huerta, with other labor leaders. You have to be very very careful here. Not because these people are horrible personal characters is because it's because their view of the world is is in conflict with what you want to accomplish. They defend capital. And so it's very dangerous for them. Also to be quite honest, labor notes, which is a well-known local US-based group of former staffers, union officials, I call them the left bureaucracy. They have influence and they have the ability to bring together lots of rank and file trade unionists and workers. However, historically their role also has been to capitulate to the trade union leadership, not lead a struggle against the trade union leadership. And if you're in organized labor and you want to change the situation of your co-members, your workers on the job, and you want to become part of the trade union movement, you're going to come into conflict with the present leadership. It's just inevitable because their view is the employers have certain rights. Capitalism is the only system and when it goes into the into crisis we have to bail it out. And so I just want to say those few things because there are the tremendous developments taking place in the United States. But there's there's big dangers. I'm very positive about it. I love to see what's going on. I follow some of these folks on Twitter and the things that are happening. But anyway, I just want to make those things make those few points and that's it. That's Richard. Oh, I was going to say this much. The most important thing in the trade union movement, I was active in the trade union movement is to keep your feet rooted in your co-workers in the workplace and in the rank and file of the trade union movement. If you're there, if you're rooted there and you that's your base, I was a delegate to the Central Labor Council of Alameda County for 12 years. I was alone in there but I was I was firmly rooted among my members and my work co-workers on the job I was involved in Tony Mizokis campaign for the Labour Party. It was an interesting campaign. I won't go into that here and my members were very involved in it. My union was very involved in it but I never ever I was always rooted among my members. I ran for office for the Central Labor Council on a position of no support for Democrats and Republicans. It took me some years four or five or six years to get my union not to support Democrats and to campaign for a Labour Party and so it's it's that to me is a key question is to keep yourself rooted firmly among the working class, your own co-workers and if you're in a local among the doospein members of your local and your whole approach should be to draw them into the leadership into the struggle against the employers and capitalism. You you you cannot substitute yourself for the mass movement and for the movement of workers in general. I just got back from a vacation and these are some of my thoughts. Sitting on the porch having a beer listen a little bit of music. All right Richard Miller, facts for working people check out our blog, facts for working people that we know what's up dot blogspot.com and if you have some stories you want to write for it if they're socially conscious about working class life send them to us so rather convoluted email we underscore no underscore what's underscore up at Yahoo dot com don't blame me for that all right thanks a lot