“Observations”

by: Donald S. Conkey

Date: August 30, 2007 - # 935 - Labor Day 07 (804)

Labor Day weekend has arrived and we ask: where has the summer of 2007 gone? Labor Day, which along with Memorial Day, book-ends our summers, use to be the holiday that signaled the opening of  school, the end of summer vacations, and the beginning of America’s preoccupation with which college football team is number one. No more. Here in Cherokee County schools reopen in early August, vacations are planned around the school’s calendar, and college football’s big day is no longer January 1.

      And far too often the purpose of America’s Labor Day holiday is forfeited to that one last vacation trip. Labor Day was established to honor the workers of America and to remember what the labor movement brought to America’s culture.     

      Sadly this holiday is now more about “getting-away” than remembering the labor movement’s contributions to America’s workers: retirements, shorter work weeks, insurance, safer working environments, etc. These ‘perks,’ now taken for granted, basically all originated in the labor movement.

       The pathway that led this nation to honor its workers was filled with strong opposition – often violence. Worker’s rights were unheard of. This was radical thinking and strongly opposed by both politicians and business alike. But America was building something no nation had ever built before, a nation of free people, a people who wanted to share in the dreams made possible by America’s foundational documents.

      Workers organized. Management resisted. Government, until the 1880s sided with management. But as attitudes changed “skilled workers” were able to organize and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was born, the beginning of America’s labor movement.

      America’s first Labor Day parade was initiated in 1882 by two workers, Matthew Maguire and Peter J. McGuire, both skilled workers. These two also suggested a national holiday for workers. The first unions, with leaders like Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, and Clarence Darrow, organized the craftsmen – the builders, plumbers, railroad workers, etc.  As the labor movement began to grow, fiery, often hot tempered men dreamed of organizing the average working man, those on the assembly line, in the steel mills, and those in the coal mines of America.

      But not until 1937 would these laborers find the support needed to bring management to the bargaining table. Michigan’s Governor Frank Murphy brought in the National Guard to protect strikers at the Buick plant in Flint, Michigan against management’s oppressive guards. There were bloody battles and lives were lost, on both sides. I lived nearby and witnessed this historical event from a ringside seat. That was the year the United Auto Workers (UAW) became a force in America. Labor had won its place at the bargaining table. World War II solidified union gains. The war effort demanded uninterrupted war production and no one wanted a strike. Labor then became a dominant force in American politics. But labor’s leaders let their power go to their head and they soon became abusive, often misusing their power and clout. But America now understood labor unions were here –to-stay. To work in Detroit a worker had to have a union card (I still have mine). Detroit became a “closed shop.”

      Franklin Roosevelt’s government favored labor and passed many new labor supportive laws. The labor movement grew and represented nearly 30 percent of America’s labor force by the sixties. But foreign competition forced changes and today union representation has been reduced to about 13 percent of today’s labor force, with many of these members being government workers and school teachers.

      Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence, “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government  . . .” took on a new meaning for those seeking labor justice. These are powerful words and define what can, and should happen, when any segment of America becomes too oppressive.

      The labor movement is an example of what can happen when a people become oppressed. Oppressed working people, encouraged by Jefferson’s words in the Declaration, the “laws of Nature,” organized and changed the way America treated its workers. Men and women were killed and families went hungry because the workers believed so strongly in the labor movement they refused to cross the “picket line.”

      Others, like Martin Luther King, were inspired by the labor movement and began movements of their own, movements that changed America even more. Yet labor’s fight for justice continues. Movement of jobs offshore, free trade zones, etc, all cause issues that affect the lives of America’s working families – always have, and always will. That is why America has survived these many years. Because “we-the-people” have the right to organize, to gather, to march, yes, even to strike, and to make our voices heard, America has prospered.    

      Let those rights die and America dies.