Labor
Day Hypocrisy
By Stephen Lendman
31 August, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Labor
Day is commemorated on the first Monday in September each year since
the first one was celebrated in New York in 1882. Around the world outside
the US, socialist and labor movements are observed on May 1 to recognize
organized labor's social and economic achievements and the workers in
them. This day gets scant attention in the US, but where it's prominent
it's commonly to remember the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886 in Chicago.
It followed the city's May 1 general strike for an eight hour day that
led to violence breaking out on the 4th.
Labor Day became a national
federal holiday when Congress passed legislation for it in June, 1894
at a time working people had few rights, management had the upper hand,
only wanted to exploit them for profit, and got away with it. It took
many painful years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on strike,
holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard forces, and paying
with their blood and lives before real gains were won. They got an eight
hour day, a living wage, on-the-job benefits and the pinnacle of labor's
triumph in the 1930s with the passage of the landmark Wagner Act establishing
the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It guaranteed labor the right
to bargain collectively on equal terms with management for the first
time ever.
All of it was won from the
grassroots. Management gave nothing until forced to and neither did
government. It always sides with business never yields a thing unless
threatened with disruptive work stoppages or possible insurrection.
All this is in a democracy that claims to be a government of the people,
by the people and for the people, most of whom are ordinary working
class ones.
Since a worried Congress
passed the 1935 Wagner Act during The Great Depression, the state of
organized labor declined, especially post-WW II. It accelerated precipitously
during the Reagan years under an administration openly hostile to worker
rights in its one-side support for management. It continued unabated,
under Republican and Democrat administrations, and today stands at a
multi-generational low.
Under George Bush conditions
got much worse. Since coming into office in 2001, he sided with management
openly on policies to strip workers of their right to organize and be
able to bargain for a living wage and essential benefits. He hired anti-union
officials, denied millions overtime pay, cut pay raises for 1.8 million
federal workers claiming a "national emergency," and schemed
to end Social Security as we know it by plotting (unsuccessfully so
far) to let Wall Street sharks take it over.
Since labor's ascendency
decades earlier, corporate America, in league with government, shamelessly
denigrated unions and the rights of working people in them. In 1958,
34.7% of the work force was unionized, but now the figure is around
12% overall, and only 7.4% in the private sector - the lowest it's been
in seven decades.
Even worse, most jobs are
low-pay service sector ones because the nation's manufacturing base
and many higher-paying positions in finance and technology have been
offshored to low-wage developing nations. Workers there can be hired
for a fraction of the pay scales here or as virtual serfs at below poverty
wages as low as $2 a day or less and no benefits. They fill legions
of sweatshop factory jobs in countries prohibiting unions and fair worker
practice standards for Wal-Mart's "Always low prices" on the
backs of ruthlessly exploited working people.
Nonetheless, on the first
Monday each September, this nation "remembers" working Americans
with a federally-mandated holiday in their "honor." Who's
celebrating when it's disingenuously commemorated at a time worker rights
are threatened, ignored, forgotten, and uncared about by heartless governments
beholden to capital. They scorn working people who are no longer as
deceived with meaningless bread and circus droppings at the expense
of what they need most: good jobs at good pay, essential benefits, job
security, and a government on their side doing what counts most - supporting
their rights with worker-friendly legislation.
Workers are reminded every
day that backing like that is off the table by governments shamelessly
mocking their day. It's commemorated in name only by a nation beholden
to capital, the corporate giants controlling it, and the best democracy
their money can buy for them alone.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information
Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.
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