Laborious

Gee, it's Labor Day. I wonder if Trump's daughter will give us another blindingly tone deaf FUN idea, like her Memorial Day champagne popsicle tweet. I wonder if Deadbeat Donald will take this Labor Day, his first as president, to pay off all the workers he's stiffed throughout his lifetime in biz. Wonder if either will start having their products manufactured here in the good ol' US.

HaHaHaHa, //snort//. Yeah, I 'd be shocked right down to my DNA.

Just in case you MIGHT have forgotten, this is what Labor Day's about.

Labor Day...is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. (source)

You know, the labor movement which gave us the eight hour day and 40 hour work week, paid vacas, the Family and Medical Leave Act, breaks during the workday including LUNCHIE!, miltary leave, paid holidays (of which today is one). In case you’ve seen that viral graphic clamining that Henry Ford singlehandedly brought all this about and more – ah, no. Check out this Politifact post for a dose of reality.

I only mention it but, once out in adult world, I very much wanted to join a Union print shop. While I didn’t work in a sweat shop, the higher pay and better bennies of a Union joint were obvs preferable. Sadly those gigs were and are few and far between.

Why? Imagine you own a biz and you can make workers toil for free or close to it. You're able to cut corners like mad so's, at day's end, there’s more gelt lining your silken pockets. You get to keep all profit for yourself. If you're not burdened by compassion or humanity, that's just what you do or try to.

This is how the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire came to be. Think that sort of thing would never happen now? While there're no deaths (that we know of) lookit Tyson Foods, Case Farms and, of course, Walmart who’s employees are paid so damn little that taxpayers subsidize the, often full time, workers to the tune of, estimated, $6.2 billion. This is for food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing. Walmart doesn't pay their workers enough for even basic subsistance.

Just FYI, the Walmart heirs are hardly suffering. From the Economic Policy Institute:

...in 2010, as the Walton’s wealth has risen and most other Americans’ wealth declined, it is now the case that the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.

But Walmart fights unionization viciously.

The International Business Times found that:

From 1979 to 2012, union membership slid by more than one half, from 24 percent of all workers to 11 percent. Over that same time, the size of the middle class shrank by more than 10 percentage points, to 45 percent of the population.

We need Unions now more than ever.

by Barry Deutsch at Patreon