Labor Day wish: Let’s support working people, raise wages
Americans typically view Labor Day as the end-of-the-summer holiday rather than the day set aside to honor working people, past and present — workers who have struggled throughout our country’s history, and continue to struggle, to make our society vibrant and strong.
Labor Day is also a time to credit the enormous impact the union movement has had on our country. The severest part of struggle lasted more than a half century. Resistance was fierce, and even bloody. Many people went to jail, lost their jobs, and were beaten; some died.
Ultimately, organized labor brought us the fiveday/40-hour week, overtime pay, workplace safety, paid vacations, sick leave, employer-provided health insurance and retirement. It is difficult to imagine society without these benefits we now take for granted. Unions contributed much to the rise of the middle class in the United States.
The labor movement ironically has suffered from its success. Part of the reason membership is at a low level is that workers do not feel the same intense need to organize as they did when protections and benefits were not written in law or part and parcel of American working culture.
These days, a political wind is blowing to roll back the progress workers have made. Not only are we witnessing a devaluation of workers, but a hard-core cadre of pundits and politicians scapegoat collective bargaining rights for educators, police, firefighters and other public employees. They blame these public servants for not balancing the economy on their backs. Nor, in the private sector, do they see fit to ask companies that benefit from massive profits and tax breaks to pay their fair share.
Apart from preventing the backtracking of workers’ rights, much remains to be done to bring about full workplace justice.
Millions of workers — especially in the construction, agriculture, and service industries — still suffer daily exploitation and are among the lowest paid and least protected. And millions of Americans need to work two jobs to support their families because wages are so low. If you are a woman, you make 30 percent less on the dollar than your male counterparts.
A national movement is afoot to raise the minimum wage — even double it — so that it becomes a “living wage,” and not an official marker of poverty. Congress, as typical these days, is missing in action. But what Congress won’t do on a federal level, we can — and should — do locally through direct economic and political action. We can boycott errant companies and pass local ordinances, such as assuring that public contracts will be let only to companies paying a liv- ing wage.
Given the strength of the economy, companies’ enormous profits, and the astronomical — if not obscene — level of executive pay, there is no reason why workers should not have a greater share of the wealth they are creating. They should be able to support their families without having to cobble together two or three jobs. It is a matter of justice and community.
And it makes the economy stronger. Despite the naysayers, our history shows that a bigger paycheck means more spending; better pay means more available jobs, since people won’t have to work two or three jobs.
Many religious communities are beginning to remind us of the growing inequities suffered by workers and their loss of dignity and respect. For a country where a sizable percentage of the population lays claim to a Judeo-Christian ethic, we are remarkably short on seeing ourselves as a mutually supporting community.
This is also the lesson we learn from the labor movement. Our country survives best when we live as a community, watching out for each other, and not as a conglomerate of rugged individualists, watching out only for themselves.
This Labor Day, we should reflect on these matters and commit ourselves to redirect our democracy to greater justice for workers. They, after all, are the backbone of our communities.