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Happy Labor Day! Today, government buildings and post offices, financial markets and banks are all closed. Alternate-side-of-the-street parking is suspended and there is no garbage or recycling collection. Mass transit is running on a Sunday schedule. There a number of events today (though we think that the West Indian American Day Carnival is the best bet) and it's also the last day of the year that city beaches and pools will be open.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Day "is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."
The first Labor Day was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City, after the Central Labor Union decided to hold a demonstration and picnic. The day became a national holiday in 1894. The Kansas City Star has an article about how Labor Day's significance gets overlooked, accompanied by a graph of labor involvement. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently wrote, "We as a nation have traded off lower priced goods and services, in place of a unionized workforce with the bargaining clout to get higher wages. So now, a lot of us get good consumer deals and lousy paychecks."
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Its no coincidence that as Americans allow the steady erosion of labor unions - the number of uninsured working-class Americans rise.
The real threat to unions is member apathy. Most unions have become inherently conservative institutions that make the current republican party seem liberal by comparison. Today's unions seek mostly to preserve the wages and benefits already fought for by previous generations as opposed to remaining in the forefront of the fight for workers rights. In doing so, unions alienate new members by becoming either an exclusive club where only the sons and daughters of members can find acceptance, or a kind of bully squad, forcing people to pay dues for the right to work at a certain job without truly representing their best interests. At the same time, many unions consistently undermine their ability to work well with management by insisting on maintaining benefits for all members which cannot be economically supported, and, frankly, are not necessary for the youth of today, who can exepct to work 5 to 10 years longer than their parents and grandparents.
Unions are at their best, and inspire greater acceptance by society as a whole when they stand up to pretect the rights of all workers. As much as I wholeheartedly disagree with the TWU's strike tactics of a few years back (personally I think a strike in Janurary would have been mroe effective and less alienating), what they did was, in intent, a good thing.
It is the members of all unions who need to wake up to the dangers they face and work harder to improve working conditions for all people in this country. Lazily relying on management and government to police and enforce the rules of fairness, openness, and safety is a recipe for disaster. Just ask anyone who had to be in and around the Deusche Bank Building last week.
And yes, I am a card carrying union member.
Very well stated Tartugas. As someone who grew up in a union household (Father was a borough delegate for the PBA), I could see first hand how the city seemed to work against the interests of the police force even though at the time (the 80's) the police were needed more than ever to safeguard what was then an exceptionally dangerous city to live in.
He always told me to stay out of union politics and now that I'm actually working for a unionized shop, I can definitely see why.
On the other hand though..Its sad really, that so many people just knee jerk respond to anything union in a negative way without at least trying to put a discerning eye on what the positives and the negatives are, but I have a feeling that has more to do with the fact that so many professional workers, especially in this town, were lead to believe that a college degree and some hard work were all that is needed to become the next Wall Street or (insert office profession here) superstar. Reality is not so sweet, having seen it first hand when I used to work in an anything goes state for an anything goes corporate entity. A thousand office drones pitted against one another believing that one day they'll be able to eat at the big kids table even though that membership list was probably decided long before they came on staff and has nothing to do, a lot of times, with how well one works.
Sad relaly.
Cause the Union makes us Strong.