Almost one hundred and forty-one years ago, on September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost didn’t happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of Newark Two showed up with musicians, the rest of the marchers, eventually numbering between 10,000 and 20,000 men and women, fell in behind them to parade through lower Manhattan. At noon, when they reached the end of the route, the march broke up and the participants listened to speeches, drank beer, and had picnics. Other workers joined them.
Labor Day should be more respected than just advertisements for items being on sale. You write, Heather, that the same arguments which occurred in the 1800’s still exist in 2023. Union workers everywhere, are going on strike for better wages and benefits. Look at what is happening to the writers and staff for Hollywood and tv shows. The CEOs are raking in millions upon millions upon millions of dollars while the front line people struggle to eat or take care of themselves. Greed is atrocious.
Wonderful letter. I have tried to explain to people that the market crash in '93 was purposeful to hamper Cleveland, but people aren't willing to accept it. So, I'm saving this letter for sure!
"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.”
President Grover Cleveland not only saw his present clearly in the 1880s, he also saw our here and now. But thankfully workers today are increasingly restive and fighting back against very long odds.
Respect for work is needed. For example hedge fund managers neither work nor do anything that improves our economy; I would tax the pants off them. People who build and repair things have real value, so do teachers, nurses, scientists, garbage collectors, city planners, etc.
I saw this post today on a social media site, “8 men have as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, but sure, the single mom on food stamps is the problem.”
Thank you for the great history lesson, Heather. I believe most of the turmoil of our politics and government today has its roots in the extreme income disparity we are experiencing. Robert Reich writes about why we are experiencing extreme income disparity today in his substack article: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/jack-welch-and-the-end-of-stakeholder I think it is a MUST read because he not only says how we got here but also what we can do to fix it! History is rhyming! Enjoy!
How interesting that the Republicans, even back then, were perfectly willing to crash the economy to "prove" how dangerous Democratic social policies were. Must be in their DNA.
Have a relaxing Labor Day, everyone. We've earned a day off!
Check this map to see how much more a corporate CEO makes than their workers? How much are the CEOs in the worst 100 corporations paid? How much stock do they own? How much does their corporation spend on stock buybacks to boost the value of their CEO's stock holding? How much do workers make? What is the CEO/Worker salary ratio? What regulations have been proposed to fix this rigged system be fixed? https://thedemlabs.org/2023/09/03/labor-day-kentucky-greed-derby-corporations-exploit-workerr-overpay-ceos/
So often we see that those who have want more and those who don't have don't have the power to gain traction. Wealth of the elite is truly built on the backs of hard working men and women (and in times before 1900, children as well, sometimes that is even true today, though not legal.) A few of the wealthy (Allen, Gates, Soros, Buffett) try to share their wealth, and Bezos ex-wife and Paul Allen's sister have been at the forefront of wealth distribution, but in a trillions of dollars economy, a billion here, a billion there, does not amount to nearly as much as fair appropriate taxation would permit. We need money for teachers, good schools, decent housing, replacement of fossil fuels, and many other things. Hope the march this year will be massive; we will soon see what the heart of the nation looks like.
Today's GOP is the issue of Movement Conservatives in bed with The Religious Right (as personified by court capture operative and professional Catholic extremist Leonard Leo.) It is built on the racism and classism of the Founding enslavers and the hatred of American Federal government of their Confederate heirs. As amplified in the Republican Southern Strategy. It's success is in part through the appeal and exploitation of bigotry. But this is also fueled in part by the legitimate fears and grievances of working class people disadvantaged by the Democratic party's embrace of NeoLiberalism initiated by Bill Clinton - aligning the party with Wall Street interests and making it vulnerable to splitting off of working class voters by GOP wedge issues.
___The early-September tribute to workers has been an official holiday for almost 130 years
— but an emboldened labor movement has created an environment closer to the era from which Labor Day was born. Like the late 1800s, workers are facing rapid economic transformation
— and a growing gap in pay between themselves and new billionaire leaders of industry, mirroring the stark inequalities seen more than a century ago.
___“There’s a lot of historical rhyming between the period of the origins of Labor Day and today,” Todd Vachon, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, told The Associated Press. “Then, they had the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. Today, we have the Musks and the Bezoses. ... It’s a similar period of transition and change and also of resistance
— of working people wanting to have some kind of dignity.”
___Between writers and actors on strike, contentious contract negotiations that led up to a new labor deal for 340,000 unionized UPS workers and active picket lines across multiple industries, the labor in Labor Day is again at the forefront of the holiday arguably more than it has been in recent memory.
___Unionized workers at UPS threatened a mass walkout before approving a new contract last month that includes increased pay and safety protections for workers. A strike at UPS would have disrupted the supply chain nationwide.
___Last month, auto workers also overwhelmingly voted to give union leaders the authority to call strikes against Detroit car companies if a contract agreement isn’t reached by the Sept. 14 deadline. And flight attendants at American Airlines also voted to authorize a strike this week.
“I think there’s going to be definitely more attention given to labor this Labor Day than there may have been in many recent years,” Vachon said. Organizing around labor rights has “come back into the national attention. ... And (workers) are standing up and fighting for it.”(AP) See link below.
___WHY CHILD LABOR IN AMERICA IS SKYROCKETING by Robert Reich
___Corporations are bringing back child labor in America.
And some Republicans want to make it easier for them to get away with it.
___Since 2015, child labor violations have risen nearly 300%. And those are just the violations government investigators have managed to uncover and document.
___The Department of Labor says it’s currently investigating over 600 cases of illegal child labor in America. Major American companies like General Mills, Walmart, and Ford have all been implicated.
___Why on Earth is this happening? The answer is frighteningly simple: greed.
___Employers have been having difficulty finding the workers they need at the wages they are willing to pay. Rather than reduce their profits by paying adult workers more, employers are exploiting children.
___The sad fact of the matter is that many of the children who are being exploited are considered to be “them” rather than “us” because they’re disproportionately poor and immigrant. So the moral shame of subjecting “our” children to inhumane working conditions when they ought to be in school is quietly avoided.
___And since some of these children (or their parents) are undocumented, they dare not speak out or risk detention and deportation. They need the money. This makes them easily exploitable.
It’s a perfect storm that’s resulting in vulnerable children taking on some of the most brutal jobs.
Folks, we’ve seen this before.
___Reformers fought to establish the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for a reason
— to curb the grotesque child labor seen during America’s first Gilded Age.
___The U.S. banned most child labor.
___But now, pro-business trade groups and their Republican lackeys are trying to reverse nearly a century of progress, and they’re using the so-called “labor shortage” as their excuse.
___Arkansas will no longer require 14 and 15 year olds to get a work permit before taking a job — a process that verified their age and required permission from a parent or guardian.
___A bill in Ohio would let children work later on school nights.
___Minnesota Republicans are pushing to let 16 year-olds work in construction.
____And 14-year-olds in Iowa may soon be allowed to take certain jobs in meatpacking plants and operate dangerous machinery.
It’s all a coordinated campaign to erode national standards, making it even easier for companies to profit off children.
___Across America, we’re witnessing a resurgence of cruel capitalism in which business lobbyists and lawmakers justify their actions by arguing that they are not exploiting the weak and vulnerable, but rather providing jobs for those who need them and would otherwise go hungry or homeless.
Conveniently, these same business lobbyists and lawmakers are often among the first to claim we “can’t afford” stronger safety nets that would provide these children with safe housing and adequate nutrition.
__So what can stop this madness?
___First: Fund the Department of Labor so it can crack down on child labor violations. When I was Secretary of Labor, the department was chronically underfunded and understaffed. It still is, because lawmakers and their corporate backers want it that way.
___Second: Increase fines on companies that break child labor laws. Current fines are too low, and are treated as costs of doing business by hugely profitable companies that violate the law.
___Third: Hold major corporations accountable. Many big corporations contract with smaller companies that employ children, which allows the big corporations to play dumb and often avoid liability. It’s time to demand that large corporations take responsibility for their supply chains.
___Fourth: Reform immigration laws so undocumented children aren’t exploited.
___And lastly: Organize. Fight against state laws that are attempting to bring back child labor.
Are corporate profits really more important than the safety of children? (RichardReich) See link below.
My ancestors, recent immigrants from Ukraine in the 1880’s, started a business (Machlin & Sons) making pants, AND were labor organizers (Esther Machlin Laddon, close friend of Emma Goldman).
I have always believed in the power of labor, organized and united, to uplift people out of poverty and drudgery to a life of their dreams! Today, the goal of helping people live lives of productive, soul-fulfilling work continues.
My favorite slogan of the early labor movement is, “8 hours labour, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest”
Labor Day should be more respected than just advertisements for items being on sale. You write, Heather, that the same arguments which occurred in the 1800’s still exist in 2023. Union workers everywhere, are going on strike for better wages and benefits. Look at what is happening to the writers and staff for Hollywood and tv shows. The CEOs are raking in millions upon millions upon millions of dollars while the front line people struggle to eat or take care of themselves. Greed is atrocious.
Wonderful letter. I have tried to explain to people that the market crash in '93 was purposeful to hamper Cleveland, but people aren't willing to accept it. So, I'm saving this letter for sure!
"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.”
President Grover Cleveland not only saw his present clearly in the 1880s, he also saw our here and now. But thankfully workers today are increasingly restive and fighting back against very long odds.
Respect for work is needed. For example hedge fund managers neither work nor do anything that improves our economy; I would tax the pants off them. People who build and repair things have real value, so do teachers, nurses, scientists, garbage collectors, city planners, etc.
I saw this post today on a social media site, “8 men have as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, but sure, the single mom on food stamps is the problem.”
Happy labor day from the wife of a retired 41 year member of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union local 21.
Thank you for the great history lesson, Heather. I believe most of the turmoil of our politics and government today has its roots in the extreme income disparity we are experiencing. Robert Reich writes about why we are experiencing extreme income disparity today in his substack article: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/jack-welch-and-the-end-of-stakeholder I think it is a MUST read because he not only says how we got here but also what we can do to fix it! History is rhyming! Enjoy!
Kind of depressing to realize that corporations have had such a stranglehold on politics for over a hundred years at this point...
"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.”
Some. Things. Never. Change.
How interesting that the Republicans, even back then, were perfectly willing to crash the economy to "prove" how dangerous Democratic social policies were. Must be in their DNA.
Have a relaxing Labor Day, everyone. We've earned a day off!
A happy, pensive, respectful and delightful we’ll deserved Labor Day to All!
Check this map to see how much more a corporate CEO makes than their workers? How much are the CEOs in the worst 100 corporations paid? How much stock do they own? How much does their corporation spend on stock buybacks to boost the value of their CEO's stock holding? How much do workers make? What is the CEO/Worker salary ratio? What regulations have been proposed to fix this rigged system be fixed? https://thedemlabs.org/2023/09/03/labor-day-kentucky-greed-derby-corporations-exploit-workerr-overpay-ceos/
So often we see that those who have want more and those who don't have don't have the power to gain traction. Wealth of the elite is truly built on the backs of hard working men and women (and in times before 1900, children as well, sometimes that is even true today, though not legal.) A few of the wealthy (Allen, Gates, Soros, Buffett) try to share their wealth, and Bezos ex-wife and Paul Allen's sister have been at the forefront of wealth distribution, but in a trillions of dollars economy, a billion here, a billion there, does not amount to nearly as much as fair appropriate taxation would permit. We need money for teachers, good schools, decent housing, replacement of fossil fuels, and many other things. Hope the march this year will be massive; we will soon see what the heart of the nation looks like.
Today's GOP is the issue of Movement Conservatives in bed with The Religious Right (as personified by court capture operative and professional Catholic extremist Leonard Leo.) It is built on the racism and classism of the Founding enslavers and the hatred of American Federal government of their Confederate heirs. As amplified in the Republican Southern Strategy. It's success is in part through the appeal and exploitation of bigotry. But this is also fueled in part by the legitimate fears and grievances of working class people disadvantaged by the Democratic party's embrace of NeoLiberalism initiated by Bill Clinton - aligning the party with Wall Street interests and making it vulnerable to splitting off of working class voters by GOP wedge issues.
LABOR in the US: Good and Bad News
September 3, 2023
___The early-September tribute to workers has been an official holiday for almost 130 years
— but an emboldened labor movement has created an environment closer to the era from which Labor Day was born. Like the late 1800s, workers are facing rapid economic transformation
— and a growing gap in pay between themselves and new billionaire leaders of industry, mirroring the stark inequalities seen more than a century ago.
___“There’s a lot of historical rhyming between the period of the origins of Labor Day and today,” Todd Vachon, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, told The Associated Press. “Then, they had the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. Today, we have the Musks and the Bezoses. ... It’s a similar period of transition and change and also of resistance
— of working people wanting to have some kind of dignity.”
___Between writers and actors on strike, contentious contract negotiations that led up to a new labor deal for 340,000 unionized UPS workers and active picket lines across multiple industries, the labor in Labor Day is again at the forefront of the holiday arguably more than it has been in recent memory.
___Unionized workers at UPS threatened a mass walkout before approving a new contract last month that includes increased pay and safety protections for workers. A strike at UPS would have disrupted the supply chain nationwide.
___Last month, auto workers also overwhelmingly voted to give union leaders the authority to call strikes against Detroit car companies if a contract agreement isn’t reached by the Sept. 14 deadline. And flight attendants at American Airlines also voted to authorize a strike this week.
“I think there’s going to be definitely more attention given to labor this Labor Day than there may have been in many recent years,” Vachon said. Organizing around labor rights has “come back into the national attention. ... And (workers) are standing up and fighting for it.”(AP) See link below.
https://apnews.com/article/labor-day-history-unions-organized-
___WHY CHILD LABOR IN AMERICA IS SKYROCKETING by Robert Reich
___Corporations are bringing back child labor in America.
And some Republicans want to make it easier for them to get away with it.
___Since 2015, child labor violations have risen nearly 300%. And those are just the violations government investigators have managed to uncover and document.
___The Department of Labor says it’s currently investigating over 600 cases of illegal child labor in America. Major American companies like General Mills, Walmart, and Ford have all been implicated.
___Why on Earth is this happening? The answer is frighteningly simple: greed.
___Employers have been having difficulty finding the workers they need at the wages they are willing to pay. Rather than reduce their profits by paying adult workers more, employers are exploiting children.
___The sad fact of the matter is that many of the children who are being exploited are considered to be “them” rather than “us” because they’re disproportionately poor and immigrant. So the moral shame of subjecting “our” children to inhumane working conditions when they ought to be in school is quietly avoided.
___And since some of these children (or their parents) are undocumented, they dare not speak out or risk detention and deportation. They need the money. This makes them easily exploitable.
It’s a perfect storm that’s resulting in vulnerable children taking on some of the most brutal jobs.
Folks, we’ve seen this before.
___Reformers fought to establish the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for a reason
— to curb the grotesque child labor seen during America’s first Gilded Age.
___The U.S. banned most child labor.
___But now, pro-business trade groups and their Republican lackeys are trying to reverse nearly a century of progress, and they’re using the so-called “labor shortage” as their excuse.
___Arkansas will no longer require 14 and 15 year olds to get a work permit before taking a job — a process that verified their age and required permission from a parent or guardian.
___A bill in Ohio would let children work later on school nights.
___Minnesota Republicans are pushing to let 16 year-olds work in construction.
____And 14-year-olds in Iowa may soon be allowed to take certain jobs in meatpacking plants and operate dangerous machinery.
It’s all a coordinated campaign to erode national standards, making it even easier for companies to profit off children.
___Across America, we’re witnessing a resurgence of cruel capitalism in which business lobbyists and lawmakers justify their actions by arguing that they are not exploiting the weak and vulnerable, but rather providing jobs for those who need them and would otherwise go hungry or homeless.
Conveniently, these same business lobbyists and lawmakers are often among the first to claim we “can’t afford” stronger safety nets that would provide these children with safe housing and adequate nutrition.
__So what can stop this madness?
___First: Fund the Department of Labor so it can crack down on child labor violations. When I was Secretary of Labor, the department was chronically underfunded and understaffed. It still is, because lawmakers and their corporate backers want it that way.
___Second: Increase fines on companies that break child labor laws. Current fines are too low, and are treated as costs of doing business by hugely profitable companies that violate the law.
___Third: Hold major corporations accountable. Many big corporations contract with smaller companies that employ children, which allows the big corporations to play dumb and often avoid liability. It’s time to demand that large corporations take responsibility for their supply chains.
___Fourth: Reform immigration laws so undocumented children aren’t exploited.
___And lastly: Organize. Fight against state laws that are attempting to bring back child labor.
Are corporate profits really more important than the safety of children? (RichardReich) See link below.
https://robertreich.org/post/717502268313927680
***
My ancestors, recent immigrants from Ukraine in the 1880’s, started a business (Machlin & Sons) making pants, AND were labor organizers (Esther Machlin Laddon, close friend of Emma Goldman).
I have always believed in the power of labor, organized and united, to uplift people out of poverty and drudgery to a life of their dreams! Today, the goal of helping people live lives of productive, soul-fulfilling work continues.
My favorite slogan of the early labor movement is, “8 hours labour, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest”
Amen!