Thanks for Labor Day, guys! And thanks to all those working so hard today to improve wages for those who work so hard for so little, and who keep working to provide health care for the 40 million uninsured.
As in the 1880s and 90s, we’re at this point of needing to learn once again that everyone matters to our nation and its economy, not just the wealthy. Happy Labor Day.
“In the Beginning . . .”: A Knight’s Sacred Oath
In the beginning, God ordained that man should labor, not as a curse, but as a blessing; not as a punishment, but as means of development, physically, mentally, morally, and has set thereunto his seal of approval in the rich increase and reward. By labor is brought forward the kindly fruits of the earth in rich abundance for our sustenance and comfort; by labor (not exhaustive) is promoted health of the body and strength of mind, labor garners the priceless stores of wisdom and knowledge. It is the “Philosopher’s Stone,” everything it touches turns to wealth. “Labor is noble and holy.” To glorify God in its exercise, to defend it from degradation, to divest it of the evils to body, mind, and estate, which ignorance and greed have imposed; to rescue the toiler from the grasp of the selfish is a work worthy of the noblest and best of our race.
You have been selected from among your associates for that exalted purpose. Are you willing to accept the responsibility, and, trusting in the support of pledged true Knights, labor, with what ability you possess, for the triumph of these principles among men?
Source: Illustrated “Adelphon Kruptos”: The Secret Work of the Knights of Labor as quoted in Peter J. Rachleff, Black Labor in the South: Richmond, Virginia, 1865–1890 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 135.
David Sirota in SF Gate today:
U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige labeled one “a terrorist organization.” Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called them “a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.” And U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., claimed they employ “tyranny that Americans are fighting and dying to defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan” and are thus “enemies of freedom and democracy,” who show “why we still need the Second Amendment” to defend ourselves with firearms.
Who are these supposed threats to America? No, not Osama bin Laden followers, but labor unions made up of millions of workers — janitors, teachers, firefighters, police officers, you name it.
Bashing organized labor is a Republican pathology, to the point where unions are referenced with terms reserved for military targets. In his 1996 article, headlined “GOP Readies for War With Big Labor,” conservative columnist Robert Novak cheered the creation of a “GOP committee task force on the labor movement” that would pursue a “major assault” on unions. As one Republican lawmaker told Novak, GOP leaders champion an “anti-union attitude that appeals to the mentality of hillbillies at revival meetings.”
The hostility, while disgusting, is unsurprising. Unions wield power for workers, meaning they present an obstacle to Republican corporate donors, who want to put profit-making over other societal priorities.
Think the minimum wage just happened? Think employer-paid health care and pensions have been around for as long as they have by some force of magic? Think again — unions used collective bargaining to preserve these benefits. As the saying goes, union members are the folks that brought you the weekend.
If you’re off work today, or any weekend, thank a union worker.
Harold Meyerson, in the Washington Post:
Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution. The median hourly wage for Americans has declined by 2 percent since 2003, though productivity has been rising handsomely. Last year, according to figures released just yesterday by the Census Bureau, wages for men declined by 1.8 percent and for women by 1.3 percent.
As a remarkable story by Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt in Monday’s New York Times makes abundantly clear, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of gross domestic product since 1947, when the government began measuring such things. Corporate profits, by contrast, have risen to their highest share of the GDP since the mid-’60s — a gain that has come chiefly at the expense of American workers.
It can’t continue. Just like in the 1890’s, we need our Knights of Labor again. And all of us need to help them. We can’t wait for the profiteers to suddenly become generous, that isn’t going to happen. It comes from all of us refusing to deal witrh companies that exploit their workforce – stop shopping at Walmart, stop frequenting those places where you know they don’t treat the “help” very well. When they begin to feel it in their pocketbooks, we’ll start to see changes made.
My family is fortunate, we’ve done well. But what kind of jobs can our kids get these days? Minimum wage at a fast food restaurant until they finish college? And then what? How will they be treated in the workplace, even if they follow their dreams to be engineers like their parents are or scientists? We can’t afford to send them to Ivy League schools, and they wouldn’t want to go there anyway. We’re the lucky, lucky upper middle class right now. I hope they don’t have to leave this country to find a decent place to work.
Me, I’m planning to head to Vancouver in a few years if America can’t change its attitudes. I’ve had enough of the selfish, heartless rich bastards that run this country and its corporations.
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