Call it Management Day, Investor Day or CEO Day — but don't call it Labor Day
by Leigh Pomeroy
For most Americans it seems that Labor Day weekend means two things: (1) A chance for a final family getaway before fall and (2) the symbolic end to summer.
Few realize why we celebrate Labor Day.
There was a time once when American and fresh-off-the-boat immigrant labor was misused in the name of capitalism and economic expansion. Our government was much complicit with this, not by purpose but by turning a blind eye. It took a number of muckraking books, most notably Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906), plus exposure in the media, the rise of unions, and finally the popular overturn of government to recognize the contributions of workingmen and women throughout the U.S.
Despite tremendous gains for laborers during most of the 20th century, respect, rights and economic gains of the working class have been under siege since the early 1980s, and remain cannon fodder for the investment class and many politicians today.
In Minnesota, for example, the city of Austin not too far from the Iowa border used to boast one of the highest standards of living of any working class community in the country. Citizens owned their own homes, had two cars, supported one of the best high schools in the state, and sent their kids either to college or to work, like their parents, at the locally-owned Hormel meatpacking plant, where wages were high and benefits were good, and where workers controlled the production processes.
Unfortunately, industry pressures forced the company to abandon its labor-friendly policies established in the 1930s, resulting in a devastating strike in the mid-1980s that forever changed the personality of the company and the city that is its home. Labor became a commodity subject to the lowest bid, resulting in destroyed lives and families, and the sad decline of a once prosperous community.
While employment levels today are high (according to the government), average wages for working people are down when adjusted for inflation. Yet some in America are getting fabulously rich, not by the fruits of their labor but by the nature of their position and their ability to benefit from unearned income — investments — that is taxed less and less as labor is taxed more and more.
In short, Labor Day is now no more than a cruel reminder of a time when this country once admired and celebrated the sweat and sacrifice of the working class. It is, in fact, almost a national joke, as this country, and in particular the current government, treats labor as a statistic to be manipulated rather than the fundamental building block of a democratic society.
Today, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, I received a phone call asking me to answer a survey. I was going to refuse, but after some careful prying I found out that the caller was a high school student working for a phone bank to earn money for college. She was being paid by the survey, not by the hour. I felt it was my obligation to help her out.
I don't know what her equivalent hourly rate was. I doubt that she was receiving any benefits. Her common thread to America's labor history was her desire to work, to get ahead, regardless of what the pay was.
Meanwhile, while she was working on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the CEO of the company she was calling for was no doubt off at a lake somewhere or at the seashore enjoying his time off. And she was no different than the millions of Americans working at low-wage jobs taking care of the elderly in nursing homes, keeping our grocery stores open so families can buy picnic supplies, and staffing counters at gas stations so Americans can have fuel for their vacation travels.
Labor Day holiday? Not quite. Perhaps this end-of-the-summer three-day weekend deserves a new name. Management Day? Investor Day? CEO Day? Whatever we choose there's certainly one name it no longer deserves to be called — and that's Labor Day.
For most Americans it seems that Labor Day weekend means two things: (1) A chance for a final family getaway before fall and (2) the symbolic end to summer.
Few realize why we celebrate Labor Day.
There was a time once when American and fresh-off-the-boat immigrant labor was misused in the name of capitalism and economic expansion. Our government was much complicit with this, not by purpose but by turning a blind eye. It took a number of muckraking books, most notably Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906), plus exposure in the media, the rise of unions, and finally the popular overturn of government to recognize the contributions of workingmen and women throughout the U.S.
Despite tremendous gains for laborers during most of the 20th century, respect, rights and economic gains of the working class have been under siege since the early 1980s, and remain cannon fodder for the investment class and many politicians today.
In Minnesota, for example, the city of Austin not too far from the Iowa border used to boast one of the highest standards of living of any working class community in the country. Citizens owned their own homes, had two cars, supported one of the best high schools in the state, and sent their kids either to college or to work, like their parents, at the locally-owned Hormel meatpacking plant, where wages were high and benefits were good, and where workers controlled the production processes.
Unfortunately, industry pressures forced the company to abandon its labor-friendly policies established in the 1930s, resulting in a devastating strike in the mid-1980s that forever changed the personality of the company and the city that is its home. Labor became a commodity subject to the lowest bid, resulting in destroyed lives and families, and the sad decline of a once prosperous community.
While employment levels today are high (according to the government), average wages for working people are down when adjusted for inflation. Yet some in America are getting fabulously rich, not by the fruits of their labor but by the nature of their position and their ability to benefit from unearned income — investments — that is taxed less and less as labor is taxed more and more.
In short, Labor Day is now no more than a cruel reminder of a time when this country once admired and celebrated the sweat and sacrifice of the working class. It is, in fact, almost a national joke, as this country, and in particular the current government, treats labor as a statistic to be manipulated rather than the fundamental building block of a democratic society.
Today, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, I received a phone call asking me to answer a survey. I was going to refuse, but after some careful prying I found out that the caller was a high school student working for a phone bank to earn money for college. She was being paid by the survey, not by the hour. I felt it was my obligation to help her out.
I don't know what her equivalent hourly rate was. I doubt that she was receiving any benefits. Her common thread to America's labor history was her desire to work, to get ahead, regardless of what the pay was.
Meanwhile, while she was working on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the CEO of the company she was calling for was no doubt off at a lake somewhere or at the seashore enjoying his time off. And she was no different than the millions of Americans working at low-wage jobs taking care of the elderly in nursing homes, keeping our grocery stores open so families can buy picnic supplies, and staffing counters at gas stations so Americans can have fuel for their vacation travels.
Labor Day holiday? Not quite. Perhaps this end-of-the-summer three-day weekend deserves a new name. Management Day? Investor Day? CEO Day? Whatever we choose there's certainly one name it no longer deserves to be called — and that's Labor Day.
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