This past Labor Day was a day to recognize that the labor movement built the middle class. It is too easy to not know that. As labor unions have been attacked for several decades, so has the middle class shrunk.
It is too easy to not know that. My high school civics teacher told us, “To not know is ignorance. To not find out is stupidity.”
Corporations have given us precious little. Some say that they have “given” us jobs. No, they haven’t. “Given” is the wrong word. Corporations depend upon labor. Lately, though, corporations are doing everything they can to do without people. Corporations have never been about people.
Child labor laws did not come as a gift from corporations. Nor did the 40-hour workweek. Nor did workplace safety. Nor did pensions. Nor did Social Security. Everything that workers enjoy on the job was won through struggle. As Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.”
Labor Day: a day to remember — remember to demand — on every other day!
