Sherry Chandler » Remembering the reason for the day
Remembering the reason for the day
From Robert Reich’s Blog via Have Coffee Will Write:
A young person asked me not long ago — only half in jest — whether Labor Day was named in honor of natural childbirth.
Most young people today have no memory of a time when Walter Reuther of the UAW and John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers were household names, when presidents jawboned labor to prevent agreements from causing wage-price inflation, when productivity gains pushed wages up, and when more than a third of the American workforce was unionized.
Now fewer than 8 percent of America’s private sector workers are in unions, median wage gains have fallen far behind productivity gains, and for most of us Labor Day means a long weekend.
You should read the rest of this post. Not only should we remember today that it was through the work of unions that most of us are living comfortable lives but also that there is a high cost to low prices.
More from Kevin Drum:
Ever since World War II, American labor unions have been instrumental in helping spread democracy and labor rights throughout the world. The AFL-CIO’s Lane Kirkland, for example, was one of the first to recognize what was happening in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk back in 1980, and immediately offered his help to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. In the end, the AFL-CIO funneled over $4 million in aid to Solidarity, as well as both money and technical assistance to other labor movements in Eastern Europe and around the world. From Poland to Brazil to South Africa, local labor unions have played key roles in stabilizing emerging democracies, and American support for those unions has been instrumental.
Further update from Political Animal:
The GOP’s jihad against the working and middle classes, however, is far more powerful [than its alliance with the religious right], far more insinuated into the DNA of virtually every Republican politician, and undergoes far less scrutiny by the media.
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2 Comments
1. thepoetryman replies at 3rd September 2007, 8:02 pm :
Yes and the unions are our corporatist state’s greatest enemy and they have managed to marginilize them to the point of extinction. Many people think of unions these days as dirty words. What most of these ignorant souls fail to realize is it is the union that is most representative of the principles of “we the people”. Now with everything there are flaws, but I’ll take the union over the corporate board any day of the year! The corporate powers that be have eroded the meaning of union, among many other words or phrases or terms, such as “liberal” or “dissent” or “capatilism” or “freedom” or “compensation” or “workers rights” or “labor”…and the list just keeps on going and going and going. Corporate America will be the end of America… Union America and non-corporatist America is the light at the end of a very long tunnel. I suggest we get to marching toward the light as soon as humanly possible. Like… now!
2. sherry replies at 5th September 2007, 10:26 am :
Amen, poetryman! See my update on this post in re the GOP’s enmity toward working class America.
Moreover, having been wrestling with Ma Bell over a simple refund for returned equipment, I tend to agree with a friend who says that the problem with corporate America is that nobody knows anything about customer service any more. “Nobody knows what to do,” she says. Everybody’s in their little “support” niche and can’t solve any problem that doesn’t fit the little paradigms they’re given.
Lot like doctors, really.
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