All of it was won from the grassroots. Management gave nothing until forced to and neither did government. It always sides with business never yields a thing unless threatened with disruptive work stoppages or possible insurrection. All this is in a democracy that claims to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, most of whom are ordinary working class ones.
Since a worried Congress passed the 1935 Wagner Act during The Great Depression, the state of organized labor declined, especially post-WW II. It accelerated precipitously during the Reagan years under an administration openly hostile to worker rights in its one-side support for management. It continued unabated, under Republican and Democrat administrations, and today stands at a multi-generational low.
Under George Bush conditions got much worse. Since coming into office in 2001, he sided with management openly on policies to strip workers of their right to organize and be able to bargain for a living wage and essential benefits. He hired anti-union officials, denied millions overtime pay, cut pay raises for 1.8 million federal workers claiming a "national emergency," and schemed to end Social Security as we know it by plotting (unsuccessfully so far) to let Wall Street sharks take it over.
Since labor's ascendency decades earlier, corporate America, in league with government, shamelessly denigrated unions and the rights of working people in them. In 1958, 34.7% of the work force was unionized, but now the figure is around 12% overall, and only 7.4% in the private sector - the lowest it's been in seven decades.
Even worse, most jobs are low-pay service sector ones because the nation's manufacturing base and many higher-paying positions in finance and technology have been offshored to low-wage developing nations. Workers there can be hired for a fraction of the pay scales here or as virtual serfs at below poverty wages as low as $2 a day or less and no benefits. They fill legions of sweatshop factory jobs in countries prohibiting unions and fair worker practice standards for Wal-Mart's "Always low prices" on the backs of ruthlessly exploited working people.
Nonetheless, on the first Monday each September, this nation "remembers" working Americans with a federally-mandated holiday in their "honor." Who's celebrating when it's disingenuously commemorated at a time worker rights are threatened, ignored, forgotten, and uncared about by heartless governments beholden to capital. They scorn working people who are no longer as deceived with meaningless bread and circus droppings at the expense of what they need most: good jobs at good pay, essential benefits, job security, and a government on their side doing what counts most - supporting their rights with worker-friendly legislation.
Workers are reminded every day that backing like that is off the table by governments shamelessly mocking their day. It's commemorated in name only by a nation beholden to capital, the corporate giants controlling it, and the best democracy their money can buy for them alone.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.
http://www.rense.com/general78/drim.htm
Note: http://www.rense.com/ge...
Labour Day Hypocrisy
Posted on Friday, August 31 at 13:46 by DiogenesContributed By
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Dave Ruston
A time before bliss-ninnies, navel gazers and “New Agers”<br />
A time before fighting back at Robber Barons who have been, by there own accord, elevated to Rulers of the Universe.<br />
Back in those days, and the early 20th century, men like my dad were jailed, beaten by company goons and even murdered to fight what subsequent generations have bargained away. The Winnipeg Riots, The Battle of Ballantyne Pier * are parts of Canadian history back before yuppies and the me generation.<br />
To-day Canada is fragmented by open door immigration, and it’s queue jumpers, small “L” liberals, bank credit and lines of credit, permissiveness and my personal fav special interest group: feminists.<br />
And with all that what has been gained?<br />
Lower wages, “free” trade, broken families, broken men, pill popping, epidemic drug additions and the list goes on.<br />
<br />
I have taken responsibility for the shit I’ve cause in my live back. Not so very long ago before for g8d only knows I bought a computer and was able to awaken to who crated this shit pile we now face. <br />
My fortunes have improved and now I am in the position to help people who struggle while they fight their demons of low wages, a child with Downs syndrome, the ravages of divorce and all that other shit the bliss-ninnies who have the luxury of enjoying have forgotten exists <br />
So, sit cross legged with you heel jammed up your ass as you chant OMmmm. Or blow your brains out with Molson Canadian, eh! <br />
<br />
Some body out there just might hear what Dave Ruston tell ya of they might even be able to get passed their dumb –ass opinion of me and see I ain’t shittin ya<br />
with what I present here.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cupe1975.ca/bursary/burs4.html">http://www.cupe1975.ca/bursary/burs4.html</a> <br />
The Winnipeg General Strike has been one of the most intensively studied episodes in Canadian history. It was also an important development in the building of the democratic socialist movement in Canada. Officially, the strike began at 11:00 a.m. on May 15, 1919, which was the time appointed by the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council (Bumsted, 1994). But in the larger sense the General Strike had been building for many years before that. A wide set of circumstances contributed to the strike, ranging from international to local.<br />
One of the events which led up to the strike was the European situation, where the Great War had only recently ended and a revolution was still going on in Russia. Another was the Canadian situation, where the labor movement had been altered in a variety of ways by the First World War experience. Weakened worker purchasing power due to inflation and profiteering, attempts by employers to degrade craft skills, and discontent with government policies towards labor, all led to a surge in labor militancy. The labor movement more than doubled in size between 1916 to 1919 (Bumsted, 1994).<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ballantyne_Pier">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ballantyne_Pier</a> <br />
<br />
Battle of Ballantyne Pier<br />
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<br />
The Battle of Ballantyne Pier was a clash between city, provincial, and federal police and Communist-led protesters on 18 June 1935 in the East End of Vancouver, Canada. It lasted for about three hours and was the climax of a strike by longshoremen. Local political and business leaders alleged that the strike was illegitimate because they believed it was part of an international Communist conspiracy to spark a Pacific coast Bolshevik revolution beginning on Vancouver's waterfront. The strike came on the heels of another Communist-led strike of relief camp workers that precipitated the On-to-Ottawa Trek, which was also understood to be motivated by seditious intent.<br />
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<p>---<br>"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."<br />
<br />
William Blake<br />
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"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
-Max Planck