Labor Day
So, most of us are off today. We get a day out of the year to relax, thanks to a movement that has basically been squeezed out of existence. Labor day is one of the many privileges we enjoy thanks to the Labor Movement. Other such privileges consist of 40 hour workweeks, vacation time, workers rights, etc., etc. It should only take a quick read of any novel produced circa 1900 to realize how significant such privileges are.
These privileges did not come cheap to those who fought for them. "Labor rights" activists have always been despised, and have always suffered the anonymous abuses which corporate industrialists find so easy to dole out.
I frequently hear people who have known someone, who knew someone who was in a labor union. Generally they complain about how the union took their money, and forced them to go on strike when money was tight. So, unions, especially in the South, are often disparaged. At best they are an inconvenience that none should be subjected to; at worst they are socialist "Commies" trying to usurp our pristine democracy.
So, here we are, on Labor Day, enjoying the last vestige of the bygone days when America was a democracy. Since unions were the only thing that kept America democratic on any level. Ask yourself: in our glorious union-free society that we have built in the South, and are building in the North (slowly but surely), what are the odds that corporate America is going to demand giving its employees another day off for any reason? What would Corporate Day (to off-set Labor Day) look like?
Somehow I doubt it would involve us getting a day to relax.
Consider: whoever wins this coming November, what are the odds of them fighting to strengthen worker rights? Are they likely to fight to maintain the 40 hour workweek, which as a matter of fact is being steadily and passionately eroded in our society? Most people I know would laugh at the idea that 40 hours and no more, should be enough to sustain their livelihood. A standard that took decades to achieve has, especially in recent years, begun to slip out of our hands. And, seeing that Democrats and Republicans are both puppets for corporate interests, it doesn't appear there is much we can do about it.
Maybe appearances aren't what they seem . . .
I remember my first corporate job sitting in a training session where I was informed that if I joined a labor union (as though one even existed in the area) I would be fired immediately. How this doesn't display a disgraceful violation of constitutional rights, I have no idea. Yet, no one seemed disturbed by it. It was a sub-clause in long verbal indoctrination, which assumed we should feel a deep sense of gratitude for said company rescuing us from the flames of unemployment.
Where there is no Labor Party, nor any unions, corporations fear nothing, and we are precariously close to slavery.
I am not calling us to revolution, except maybe in our worldview. What we are often instructed to see by (corporate) media, or churches (corporate religion), or school textbooks (corporate propaganda) is frequently not what is actually the case, but only what others would have us see. Still the choice of seeing is ours, so long as we can hold on to a spirit of subversion and criticism. As long as we have the remnants of the Labor effort around us, we should keep in mind where we have come from, and where we are going; at least on the few holidays we have left.
posted by Joe @ 1.9.08
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Good post Joe, I was just asking someone yesterday where and when Labor day came from. I never really thought of unions before.
But isn't the union concept just another form of corporation? I mean if corporate just means body, than any body of people with organization is a corporation. It seems that corporations are a necessity that we have to accept, but try to hold each organization responsible for what it does with it's power.
Just wondering what your take is on that.
joe, i think this is your best blog so far. i really applaud!
My first question is how do we manage to hold such organizations responsible? In current context where multi-national conglomerates span the borders and therefore laws of any nation-state, it is increasingly true that there is no one with the capacity to "lay down the law".
I admit I am largely ignorant in the world of business ideology, and my use of the term 'corporate/corporation' is a representation of this. Still, I do feel qualified enough to observe the 'big picture' and critique the grand contours.
When I speak of corporations, the implication is toward capitalist organizations whose motivation is profit for the oligarchies who direct them. Contrast this with Labor Unions, which are "corporate" in a different sense, whose primary function is not profit, but worker rights. (excluding corrupted leaderships which are common)
Unions in my opinion are the only forces that at any point had the capacity to challenge the power of corporate oligarchies, who now proceed unfettered: changing laws to their favor, buying out judicial decisions, funding the bills which are written for congress and lobbying for which ones are struck down and which ones are instituted, etc.
Corporations may, as you say, be a necessity, but I find it funny that most of the people amening such statements are the very ones getting screwed the most harshly by corporate policies (slowly but surely). We're brainwashed to think it's all inevitable, and then proceed to fight in the service of those who are brainwashing us . . .
Ultimately I think it is necessary to organize; to this extent I agree with you, only we should heavily consider whose interests are served by the organizations which arise as such. When I speak against "corporations", I am speaking against institutions who in fact serve only the interests of a fortunate few, with little regard for any others, be they third-world slaves, or middle-class American workers. Unions, as I see it, are the only 'corporate' entities which could sufficiently manage to fight to even the balance of power.
I share your suspicion of powerful corporations and the special interests they inevitably serve over the interests of the poor and powerless. But, like Jonathan, I have to include labor unions in the category of suspect corporations. And I also have to include political parties, religious organizations, universities, hospitals--really any community large enough to negotiate the terms of its own survival. Because this is the problem with any community: when communities become large or powerful enough their own survival becomes the most important issue in their agendas. This is why the Colombian revolutionary group the FARC was once a somewhat noble Robin Hood-type group devoted to helping the poor, but has now become merely a terrorist organization among others bent on its own perpetuation above the interests of the poor. This is also why the theologically trivial issue of budgets and finance seems to consume so many church leaders and paralyze them from carrying out the truly radical and subversive task of being the Broken Body of Christ in the world. And this is why labor unions accomplished so much good at the turn of the 20th century--indeed set the terms of what we consider today a fitting standard of living--but today risk privileging their own survival over those laborers and political liberties they originally set out to uplift. I still think they achieve more good than harm today, but I'm suspicious of any community that won't open itself up to external critique, and I see certain unions doing that today the same way multinational corporations do and even the same way many churches are guilty of doing. Thanks for the post.
Nic, my point in this was not to exonerate unions from criticism of their plethora of abuses. My point is that in a society where most of our lives are basically determined by corporate (in Jonathan's sense) institutions, the demise of unions marks the end of democracy. Unions are the only voice which can speak as loudly as Multi-nationals. Another way to say it, unions are the only institutions which exist for the purpose of representing the lower classes, AND have the resources to challenge corporate power and money. I agree that history has shown them to be plenty corrupt, and as such I'm not arguing that they are our saving grace, only they serve as a (very) necessary opposite pole to multinationals who, with the loss of unions, are increasingly unchallenged on a global scale.
Yeah, you're right, and I think I might have come across sounding more disparaging about labor unions than I really am. They're quite good at keeping multinationals critical, and international businesses begged to be critiqued in an increasingly irresponsible corporate world. I just think that if labor unions don't start opening themselves up to more self-criticism (by, for example, not forcing members to register with the Democratic party) they will only embody that short-sighted, monolithic corporate mindset they seek to deconstruct.
Agreed.
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