{"id":8796,"date":"2018-08-31T10:48:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=8796"},"modified":"2018-08-31T10:48:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:48:02","slug":"labor-day-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=8796","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Labor Day approaches, this would not be a bad time to keep something in mind: It was the unions that built America’s middle class — and often at terrible cost and sacrifice. It was the unions that demanded wages that raised families out of penury; fought for health and life insurance; worked to integrate the trades; made the 5-day, 40-hour week the employment standard; demanded safe working conditions; won paid vacation time; and forced companies to invest in the education of workers’ children.<\/p>\n

Repayment of my student loans was guaranteed by the Ford Foundation, so I am a direct beneficiary of that last item and, reared in postwar Detroit, an indirect beneficiary of all the rest. So is every one of you.<\/p>\n

One of the best-known events of the Labor movement happened in my home state of Michigan.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1913, a Western Federation of Miners local in the Upper Peninsula declared a wildcat strike against the Calumet and Hecla mining company. At Christmas the miners were still out, and Christmas Eve they gathered on the second floor of a place known as Italian Hall<\/a> to hold a party for their children. Just as gray wintry dusk came on, a strike breaker appeared in the crowd and shouted “Fire!” The women and children were sent first down the stairs — where they were unable to use the exit. Seventy-three of them, mostly children, died in the crush at the bottom of the steps. There was no fire, and nobody was ever prosecuted.<\/p>\n

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We all know, of course, of the corruption associated with union figures such as Jimmy Hoffa, and that made it possible to tar the entire movement and set up the union-busting and growing wealth inequality that began with Ronald Reagan; the condition of American workers has been in decline ever since. Most shockingly, the working middle-class that benefited most from the Labor movement are the very demographic who are targeted by the Koch brothers’ propaganda and today support such as Donald Trump and Scott Walker — the people who are cutting their throats.<\/p>\n

This Labor Day would not be a bad time, then, to actually give some thought to the Labor movement and its part in making America great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Labor Day approaches, this would not be a bad time to keep something in mind: It was the unions that built America’s middle class — and often at terrible cost and sacrifice. It was the unions that demanded wages … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8796"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8798,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8796\/revisions\/8798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}