Labor Day 2011

In this year that began in Wisconsin with the tearing apart of collective bargaining, Labor Day has a special meaning it hasn't had to deal with in a long time. Here's some history:

The first Labor Day in the United States was observed on September 5, 1882, by the Central Labor Union of New York. It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. The September date originally chosen by the CLU of New York and observed by many of the nation's trade unions for the past several years was selected rather than the more widespread International Workers' Day because Cleveland was concerned that observance of the latter would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair, which it had been observed to commemorate. All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have made it a statutory holiday.
--Wikipedia

I find it hard to understand how unions have become demonized again. Most union workers are the heart and soul of the American workforce. But unions are in the midst of hard times. Perhaps we need to remember where this all came from and why.

Here are Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie celebrating:

Back to the Past

It amazes me that we are in the midst of an argument and divide that sounds like it could have been out of the last Century- and not the 1990s. It could have been in the first few decades as workers began to see that they were not well represented in negotiating with their bosses. It could have been in the 50s and 60s when, finally, some places like steel mills began to give their workers the right to strike and negotiate- form a union.

But it is 2011, for God's sake. We are supposed to be more compassionate, more civilized, a long way from the union wars of 100 years ago. All of a sudden (or maybe not all that suddenly) unions are again the enemy and public workers are becoming the scapegoats of a recession. They are about to be punished in many places because they have jobs- jobs which are important and even essential to our continued growth and well-being as a nation.

We must be a community. We must have public workers who can have dignity and acceptance. It doesn't matter whether they are teachers, who have been scapegoats for years, police and firefighters, snowplow drivers, or sanitation workers. We need them- and we need them to get a fair wage in a fair market. To deny them the right to have collective bargaining is to take a HUGE step into the past. It is a step into a country and community that was not, in any way, shape or form, anything like the "good, old days."

Let's not allow our nation to go backwards.