Tag: labor day

Putting Labor Back in Labor Day Weekend

W.J. Astore

More Lessons Learned from My Dad

Note: I originally wrote a version of this post in 2018. I’ve made a few updates below to include a reader’s comment that was especially apropos.

WPR: Marches & Pickets

Labor Day weekend is a reminder that there’s no labor party in U.S. politics.  Instead, we have two pro-business parties: the Republican and the Republican-lite, otherwise known as the Democratic Party.  Both are coerced if not controlled by corporations through campaign finance “contributions” (bribes) and lobbyists (plus the promise of high-paying jobs should your local member of Congress lose an election or wish to transition to a much higher paying job as a lobbyist/influence peddler).  With money now defined as speech, thanks to the Supreme Court, there’s a lot of “speech” happening in Congress that has nothing to do with the concerns of workers.

Nevertheless, a myth exists within the mainstream media that “socialist” progressive politicians are coming to take your money and to give it to the undeserving poor (and especially to “illegal” immigrants, who aren’t even citizens!).  First of all, the so-called Democratic Socialists are not advocating nationalization of industry; they’re basically New Deal Democrats in the tradition of FDR.  Just like Republicans, they believe in capitalism (and bow to corporatism) and the “free” market; they just want to sand down some of the rougher edges of exploitation.

Consider, for example, Bernie Sanders’s past efforts to get a living wage for Disney employees.  In 2018 Disney finally promised to pay workers $15.00 an hour (phased in over the next few years), even as the corporation made record profits and the CEO earned hundreds of millions.  Second, the bulk of the Trumpian tax breaks didn’t go to the workers and middle class: the richest Americans (and corporations) benefited the most from Trump’s tax cuts.  Some of that money was supposed to “trickle down” to workers, but most of it didn’t.  (Funding stock buy-backs, not pay raises, was and is especially popular among corporations.)

(An aside: trickle-down economics is almost an honest term, for that is what both major political parties in America support for workers: a “trickle” of pay and benefits. Forget about a stream or steady flow; of course, gushers and floods of money flow upwards to the richest few and remain there, irrespective of physical laws like gravity.)

My father knew the score.  As a factory worker, he lived the reality of labor exploitation and fought his own humble battle for decent wages.  His experience led him to conclude that the rich had neither sympathy nor use for the poor.

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I’d like to share a comment made at Bracing Views by a reader back in 2018. It captured the sad reality of Labor Day as it exists today in America:

Labor Day is perhaps our most hollowed out and meaningless of all the the National Holidays we celebrate…

Celebrating Labor Day as it should be, that is the documentation of Labor’s over 100 years of historical struggle against Capitalism is not something we can do. We cannot celebrate it for two reasons: One it would be admission of the class warfare the 1% vs us Proles, and Two we have no Labor Party here in the USA to represent us.
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As Leo W. Gerard is the International President of the United Steelworkers (USW) union has written:

“American corporations weren’t always shareholder-centered. For about three decades after World War II, worker wages rose in tandem with productivity. This was a time during which corporations subscribed to the philosophy that they were obligated to serve their customers, communities, workers and shareholders.

Over the past 30 years, however, US corporations embraced a new notion, which is that they had only one responsibility, to fill the pockets of shareholders.

That is the same 30 years during which workers’ wages stagnated and CEO pay rose no matter how badly the executive performed. That is the same 30 years in which private equity firms bought manufacturers, loaded them up with debt, sold them off at massive profit then shrugged when a stumble threw the firm into bankruptcy, closed factories and killed good, family-supporting American jobs. That is the same 30 years when American corporations moved manufacturing from the United States to low-wage, high-pollution countries like Mexico and China.”
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Today, Labor Day, you can celebrate it by going to your local Big Box Store and take advantage of the Labor Day Sales, and purchase a product NOT Made in USA and sold to you by cashiers probably not making a Living Wage.

Unhappy Labor Day

W.J. Astore

Saw this reminder today and thought of how President Joe Biden has consistently failed to deliver to laborers across America:

President Biden campaigned on the promise of setting the federal minimum wage at $15, which some argue is long overdue and even inadequate. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25, and has been since 2009 when it was last increased. 

Biden had the opportunity, once he was elected, to act on this promise. He chose not to. As early into his administration as February, when the Senate Parliamentarian (an unelected position) ruled that raising the minimum wage to $15 could not be included in Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” bill, Biden gave up the fight. “It just doesn’t look like we can do it,” Biden said, despite the fact that his own Vice President Kamala Harris could have easily overruled the Parliamentarian. 

So I guess Biden’s new tactic is to focus on the MAGA “fascists” and distract people from issues like his failure to keep his promise on a $15 federal minimum wage.

Whether this will work remains to be seen. Supposedly, women are energized to vote because of the SCOTUS decision against abortion, but again both Biden and Barack Obama, after promising to codify Roe v. Wade into law, did nothing. So why are women energized to vote for the do-nothing Democrats?

Meanwhile, Ukraine is getting even more money for a seemingly endless war with Russia, even as America faces an impending crisis over millions of pending evictions due to failure to pay rent. There’s a trillion dollars for the Pentagon and nearly $70 billion for Ukraine but forget about rental relief for millions of Americans greatly stressed by Covid-19, inflation, and mostly flat wages.

Happy Labor Day, everyone.

My dad always said that the harder he worked physically, the less he got paid

A Cautionary Tale for Labor Day

My Dad in the Army in 1945
My Dad in the Army in 1945

W.J. Astore

In December 2010, I wrote the article below for Truthout.  Even as the economy was sputtering and jobs were scarce, Congress was seeking to cut unemployment benefits.  Eventually, a compromise was forged to maintain the benefits; the price was more tax cuts for the richest Americans.  Angered by the hypocrisy and greed on display, and inspired by my father’s words and experiences, I penned my very own tale of two cities.  It’s not Dickens, but it has the merit of being far shorter.

The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Poorer (Posted originally at Truthout on 12/7/2010)

William Astore

More tax breaks for the rich in exchange for another year’s worth of unemployment benefits for the desperate: Now there’s a compromise that makes me proud to be an American. My father wouldn’t have been surprised. He grew up during the Great Depression and worked in factories before he was drafted and served in the Army during World War II. Dad told me that the harder he worked (physically), the less he got paid. And he told me there was nothing like repetitive and physically-grueling factory work to make you want to improve yourself. By becoming a civil servant (a firefighter), he escaped the factory and its dismal pay for a job that paid enough to provide five children with a lower middle class existence.

Today’s political elites seem to think that the proper way to stimulate economic growth is to empower the exploiters. That way, some of their enormous wealth will trickle down on the little people. My father knew from experience that it usually wasn’t money that trickled down from the high heights of the rich.

In the spirit of the holiday season, here’s a story from my Dad that recounts his attempt to get a dime pay raise at the local factory. Consider it a parable for the realities our working classes face day in and day out in this country:

It seems that Mike Calabrese on his own asked Harry Callahan [one of the owners] for a pay raise and he was refused. Mike decided to organize the men members and go down in a group. In our group he got ten men to approach Harry C. for a raise. But when it was time to “bell the cat” only three fellows went to see Harry. Well Mike said he couldn’t join the group because he had already tried to get a raise. I knew I was being used but I was entitled to a raise. Well Harry said to me, “What can I do for you men?” So I said to Harry: 1) Living costs were going up; 2) We deserved a raise. So Harry said, “How much?” and I said ten cents an hour would be a fair raise. So he said I’ll give you a nickel an hour raise and later you’ll get the other nickel. We agreed. So, I asked Harry will everyone get a raise and he replied, “Only the ones that I think deserve it.”

Well a month later I was drinking water at the bubbler and Harry saw me and said what a hard job they had to get the money to pay our raises. Well, Willie, Harry Callahan and his brother Sam and their two other Italian brother partners all died millionaires. No other truer saying than, That the rich have no sympathy or use for the poor.

Today, Americans are uncomfortable calling attention to pay discrepancies and exploitation because it smacks of class warfare or even Marxism. It’s true that some of the worst abuses have been curbed (for example, my father worked from 6PM to 6AM without the benefit of overtime pay or time-and-a-half), but today’s workers are simply scared: scared that their jobs will be outsourced, scared that they’ll be fired; scared that they’ll be replaced by automated robots. Thus they put up and shut up.

So, what’s the moral to the story? Our president promised hope and change. “Hope” has come in the form of more tax breaks for the rich. And “change”? To paraphrase my father: No truer saying than that politicians have no sympathy or use for the poor.