Labor Day
I was doing my usual reading in the internet world and ran across this comment to another commenter who claimed Labor Day is a made up holiday. A lot of history in this reply:
“‘A made-up holiday that never had a great basis for its existence?’
How about the Ludlow Massacre where 57 miners were killed by Rockefeller guards that set fire to miners tents even though they were on private property? Their union leader was held by two militia members and shot in the back by a third. All they wanted was mine safety, their own doctor instead of a company doctor, an eight-hour day, fair pay and a union. Or how about the five workers shot in the back at McCormick Iron Works as they ran from armed guards. They too were just demonstrating for an eight-hour day and better working conditions generally. How about the women who died in a shirt manufacturing factory in New York? They died because they were deliberately locked in a room with no way out when the building caught on fire. How about the workers hung in Chicago after the Haymarket Riot because the Chicago Tribune just about sealed their fate with a horrific attack on them? The Governor of Illinois pardoned others scheduled to be hung because of what he thought was shaky evidence. What about the five marchers shot by police in a Hunger march in Detroit in the middle of the Depression? Or what about the Battle of the Overpass, where UAW organizers were beaten and bloodied by Ford thugs while the Dearborn police stood by and watched. That is except for one time when they stopped the Ford goons from further beating on a lady unionist. The police thought Fords thugs were going to kill the lady. What about Walter Reuther, who was picked up an thrown down again over three flights of stairs, probably avoided being killed because some reporters saw what was happening, picked Reuther up and threw him in their car, then drove away. Then there was the Homestead strike at Carnegie’s steel mill in Pennsylvania—more unionists killed.
How about the practice of blackballing workers if they gave management any grief? It was common practice for owners to put the word out about a worker to other businesses if that worker was deemed a problem or in favor of a union. A blackball meant that a worker would not be hired by other businesses. Indeed, the leader of the Homestead union, nicknamed Lucky by the way, was blackballed and could not find work in this country. He was last seen working in a mine in Mexico.
Closer to home, the accepted narrative is that Henry Ford was a generous man. He wanted his employees to be able to purchase the cars that they were manufacturing. So he started the five dollar day pay rate. Ford deserves his elevated place in history because he was a pioneer in the standardization of parts necessary for mass production. That being said, the five dollar a day came about, not because Ford cared about his employees, but because the annual employee turnover rate was 309%. Work conditions were so bad in Ford’s factory that nobody would stick around. Ford had to replace his entire workforce three times a year. He had to pay five dollars a day to keep the workforce in his shop. Even then Ford’s Sociology Department could enter your home for inspection. If your lifestyle dissatisfied Ford, you did not get five dollars a day.
Let’s touch briefly on the law and government, starting with the Clayton and Sherman Anti-Trust laws. Inspired by the great trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt, those laws were clearly intended to hinder a monopoly condition by business interests, Unfortunately President Grover Cleveland and his Attorney General, Richard Olney, thought differently. When union members went on strike during Cleveland’s administration, they turned the Clayton and Sherman laws on their respective heads, claiming that unions, as monopoly’s, were in restraint of trade, Clearly, that was not the intent of the legislature that created Clayton and Sherman. That’s just one of a ton of examples.
More recently, the Republican legislature and Governor in Michigan passed an anti-union Right to Work bill. Then they attached a financial appropriation to the bill, in affect disallowing Michigan citizens from putting the issue on the ballot through a referendum procedure,
From the Republican’s point of view, that’s probably a good thing as a recent poll shows 64% of Americans favoring unions.
>>> never a great basis for its existence? Aside from the people of color among us, I doubt that any group in this country has so been so hammered and consistently beaten down as America’s workforce. Let’s not forget that today the top 1% are in possession of 40% of the country’s total wealth while wages have been stagnant for forty years. The CEO of Disney makes 1100 times what the average worker makes. If I have read Adam Smith correctly, there is no economic theory that justifies either being the case. Let’s also not forget that our current President has put a corporate lawyer that has spent a lifetime litigating against unions and employees generally at the head of the federal Department of Labor.
Those among us that have grabbed a cup of coffee and a piece of toast on the way to work as employees have earned a special day and much more respect than Matt is able to give us.
I know. I walked on a picket line with one of the brightest, most imaginative, man this country has ever produced — ‘Walter Reuther.'”
Al Churchill’s Comment
Bridge Magazine, “Labor Day has lost some luster, as partisanship pulls us apart,” Phil Power, August 30, 2019
Do not forget that the reason Detroit has such a large Muslim population is that Henry Ford recruited them in the Near East and North Africa to replace expensive American labor in his plants.
Want to take an important poll — an all important poll — ask (I’ve been asking random workers that I run into in my days) whether they would support regular union certification elections at every [non-gov] workplace?
I’m at 100% “yes” — 3 out of 3 — okay, okay, but as I get the knack I will expand. Be something if I get 50 or 100 and still get 100%? Do some professional polls with similar high results and we are on the way to a hot campaign labor issue that will totally demolish Republicans — as well as lay the foundation for a German like (real) democracy here.
I personally prefer one, three or five year cycles — local plurality rules. Can’t too deep into the weeds with people you don’t even know.
[cut-and-paste]
“The new Data for Progress poll … Trump’s favorability among the 215 Obama-Trump swing district voters who were surveyed is 71 percent—35 points ahead of Biden’s. And of all respondents, 45 percent view Trump very favorably, compared with only 4 percent who say the same for Biden. (my bold)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/obama-trump-voters-like-trump-not-biden.html
They may not be coming back. Return to Obama days they implicitly rejected with Trump? Come up with something new — like regular cret/recert/decert elections.
Bound to draw bipartisan support in post 2020 Senate.
[snip]
Today, I am hitting 500 Teamster Union email addresses with the regularly scheduled cert/recert/decert elections. Hit 100 California Teamsters last week. Slowly working on getting out to about 7,000 print journalists, not to mention academics, activists, etc. — so the ground is pre “fertilized” (these folks will have heard of it before) for anyone who wants to make a go of the issue.
Here’s what I’be been spamming — dropped here on Open Thread last week.
https://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2019/08/two-x-nothing-nothing.html
Dennis,
What you need to ask are two questions. First about the elections, and then do they vote Dem or Gop. Cause no Gop voter will vote for anyone who will vote for these elections.
Further, your thoughts on bipartisan support are beyond silly, as the Gop has attacked unions for decades and decade the federal and state levels. Not going to change.
And that worthless poll about Obama to trump voters is just that, worthless. The number of such voters were tiny. They claim to be such cause it “proves” that they are not racists, after all they (claim), “I voted for the black guy.”
They lie.
We need to make Labor Day more important. Yes, the white working class brought this upon themselves. Yet somehow people think they voted for economic reasons. Pfft. The reasons they vote for the Gop is detailed in the last paragraph herein. Coming to your since the Civil Rights Act.
” The aftershocks of the Supreme Court’s blow to organized labor continue to reverberate. Janus v. AFSCME, the court’s 2018 5–4 decision, granted public sector employees in every state a right to reap the benefits of union representation without paying for them. Backers of the litigation intended to weaken unions’ bargaining power and drive them into financial ruin. Many workers seized upon this opportunity to free-ride: After the ruling, at least 210,000 workers who previously paid fair share fees (also known as agency fees) to cover the cost of collective bargaining stopped paying a penny to their unions. AFSCME, the union at issue in Janus, lost a staggering 98 percent of its fair share fee payers.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/alaska-unions-janus-abortion-tactics.html
But what about public sector employees who want to retain union membership and pay dues? On Tuesday, Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson announced a plan to make it more difficult for the state’s employees to pay for union membership even if they want to. Clarkson’s scheme would place onerous new burdens on union membership in the name of free speech, using the power of the state to effectively dissuade workers from bargaining collectively. It goes so far beyond Janus that it creates First Amendment problems of its own.
To understand the extreme nature of Clarkson’s proposal, it’s important to remember what Janus does and does not say. The ruling overturned a 41-year-old SCOTUS decision that drew a distinction between union membership and fair share fees. Under this precedent, public sector unions could not force employees to become full-fledged members. They could, however, collect fair share fees from nonmembers, which would help fund collective bargaining. The unions could not spend fair share fees on political expenses, only nonpolitical matters like contract negotiation. Janus held that, in fact, the issues involved in collective bargaining—from wages to discipline to bathroom breaks—are “inherently” political. It invalidated compulsory fair share fees in nearly half the country, finding that they constituted “compelled subsidization” of political speech in violation of the First Amendment.
To no one’s surprise, Janus led to a mass exodus of fair share fee payers. But membership in the country’s major public sector unions has remained relatively stable or even grown slightly. Because the outcome of the case was entirely predictable, organized labor was immediately prepared to counteract it. The small uptick in membership is not always enough to counteract the effect of Janus on the union’s bottom line, though it has forestalled financial ruin…..
” Clarkson’s plan allows the state to warn workers about the “consequences” of their decision to “waive [their] First Amendment rights.” They may be told, as Clarkson wrote, that if they help fund the union, they will be “powerless to revoke the waiver of their right against compelled speech.” And if they become “unhappy with the union’s message,” they will still be “forced … to see their wages docked each pay period for the rest of the year to subsidize a message they do not support.”
This strategy appears to come straight from another conservative playbook. If it’s implemented, unions would be treated like abortion clinics in red states: heavily regulated and compelled to provide a state-mandated script explaining all the reasons why workers should not want to join a union. Employees themselves, meanwhile, would be treated like abortion patients in red states: forced to hear the state explain why they should not make a certain choice before they are allowed to choose.
The anti-abortion parallel is no coincidence. Clarkson is a staunch conservative who previously worked as an anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist. He defended a homeless shelter’s right to turn away trans people and a borough’s ability to bar Jews and Muslims from delivering invocations at assembly meetings. His recommendation to Dunleavy seems to draw on his earlier advocacy as a culture warrior.”
EM
Over time, things have a habit of correcting themselves. I agree, the day should be more important. I do not remember parades on that day like we had for the 4th and Memorial day when we were growing up. My dad was labor and I was a laborer at 18.
“Labor Day”
If you’re privileged management, then “Labor Day” is a proper noun. If you’re a poor worker subject to the whims of the boss, then “labor” day is a verb; i.e., you labor at work while the boss grills burgers on the patio. Anyone remember how Bush 43 celebrated Labor Day by praising hardworking executives?
2slugs:
More to your point. As a warehouse manager, I took a lot of abuse from the people and the uppers. I was a manager of a $200 million warehouse turning 22 – 24 times per year, collecting US components, and shipping them overseas from the west coast, or down to Mexico. Their pay was pitiful and I made it my responsibility to change it. They got paid more because I pushed the envelop on increases with my management. Many still had attitude; but, their attitude was a better paid attitude.
Al Has the history down correctly. And Labor, direct labor in an operation is a small component when compared to materials and overhead. It was < 5% in my 100,000 square foot warehouse. I almost doubled their salaries in almost 5 years. 2slugs, this is here for the read and the history which caught my eye. I wish I could talk to this guy. He is in Michigan.
“‘A made-up holiday that never had a great basis for its existence?’
If you want a made up holiday with no basis, try New Year’s. The day is completely arbitrary. It used to be the first of March, at least for folks using the Babylonian solar calendar and its descendants. Try Christmas. No one really knows when Jesus was born. The New Testament puts it in the spring, tax season, but we celebrate it around the winter solstice. Try Valentine’s Day or one of the other synthetic sales oriented holidays. There are lots of them. Given our 24/7 business world, having one day a year when laborers are supposed to take it easy is a perfectly good excuse for a holiday. It a good time to think about how little our society values to folks who actually get the work done and have skin in the game.
Spencer England: Detroit was chosen as the center of the auto industry because of its central location in the Great Lakes transportation system that provided access to iron and steel. For a while, everyone was heading to Detroit. It was like San Francisco nowadays. Arab-Americans came for the $5 wage, not a lower one. Ford would hire them, unlike blacks or Jews.
kalesburg:
Sorry for calling you 2slugs. I was tired last night.
non sequitur on much of the first paragraph. Shit happens and the pirates have control. It does not matter why Detroit was chosen. Since most product from overseas comes from the west coast by rail (with a larger canal, they may be using the east coast now. Chicago would have been a better choice as there is no rail change over for the product. The change over adds about a week. For automotive? That bridge crossing in Detroit is important since Canada is our biggest trade partner. Getting a new bridge soon.
The one liner is the opponents argument. Al is arguing back. I hope you read this. It is a magnificent rebuttal and a great history lesson.
“Christmas” is made up from the Yule or Saturnalia for the Hellenes. The 12 days of Christmas are rally the 12 days of the yule from December 20th to 31st(which not all tribes celebrated 12 days, but it makes sense scientifically).
I was only here following a posting on the late Prof. Martin Weitzman. But as a son of a Ford assembly line worker and someone who worked his way through college on loading docks, in factories, and hospitals (as an orderly), I think I qualify as “working class.” I’ve lived in Louisville, Detroit, New York, and now South Bend. I have had over the years slowly changed my mind about some American heroes. Mr. Reuther is among them. Detroit is his legacy in some significant part. He was a socialist. But for me as a Roman Catholic by choice (my roots are Eastern Kentucky, my father’s father mined coal), the impact of his professional legacy has been to support much that simply is not acceptable to this Catholic for, yes, moral reasons. At the very least, he was an accommodationist. At worst, he led the charge. And yes, he is one of the fathers of Detroit 2019. And then there is unionized education. By your fruits …
Graham:
Welcome to Angry Bear. First time comments and commenters go to moderation to weed out spam, spammers, and advertising. Typically, we initially receive all comments. You have not given me a basis to reject your comment other than to say I disagree.