Putting the Labor back in Labor Day

Hopefully everyone had a great, long weekend. I think I would be remiss if I did not take some time to talk about Labor Day. Like my recent post for the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, much is misunderstood and forgotten about this end of Summer holiday. 

Labor day was set as an American Holiday in 1887 to commemorate the American Labor movement. It was however intentionally set to not coincide with May 1st, the internationally recognized "labor day", to avoid associations with the Haymarket Masacre and the international socialist and communist movement.

This history is no doubt worth celebrating, as local State Senator Rob Teplitz did yesterday by addressing the Harrisburg CLC Labor Day Breakfast.



Many of the great strides made by labor movement include but are not limited to the 40 hr work week, paid vacation, breaks at work, FMLA and so on. 

Union affiliation peaked in the 1950's though and the place of organized labor has often been questioned for its future role. It is important then to take the time to remember why PA Dems should continue to fight for unions. Harold Meyerson explains in his post If Labor Dies, What's Next, from the American Prospect.

As unions shrank, inequality grew. From 1947 through 1972, productivity in the United States rose by 102 percent, and median household income rose by an identical 102 percent. In recent decades, as economists Robert Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker have shown, all productivity gains have accrued to the wealthiest 10 percent. In 1955, near the apogee of union strength, the wealthiest 10 percent received 33 percent of the nation’s personal income. In 2007, they received 50 percent. 

Today, wages and benefits make up the lowest share of America’s gross domestic product since World War II. Wages have fallen from 53 percent of GDP in 1970 to 44 percent today. Profits have been growing at wages’ expense. Michael Cembalest, J.P. Morgan’s chief investment officer, has calculated that reductions in wages and benefits were responsible for about 75 percent of the increase in corporate profits between 2000 and 2007.
Veteran workers in unionized plants still make $26 to $32 an hour, new hires in companies like General Motors and Caterpillar make between $12 and $19 hourly, with contracts that lock them into these lower levels no matter how long they may work there. In 2008, average hourly wage and benefit costs in the Midwest were $7 higher than they were in the South; by 2011, they were $3.34 higher. An entire region is downwardly mobile.

It is clear that without organized labor then, inequality has grown. Why might this be? As Meyerson explains, like any other market, a union gives the labor side power. With this power better benefits and wages can be achieved on behalf of ordinary workers. Even non-union workers reap the benefits of union contracts in the labor marketplace. Companies had to compete for employees providing them with good positions, lest they organize. The current path we are on though, with across the board trends in downward union density, does not bode well for the middle and lower middle class.

In PA, a state steeped in labor history, that workers power could come to an end. Right-to-Work legislation has been in enacted in more union dense Michigan and other states with similarly tea-party disposed governors. 

Right-to-Work legislation has nothing to do of course with ones ability to do a job. It enables the beneficiaries of a union contract to opt out of paying dues to their union. This deprives the organization of the money it needs to organize and operate, with the goal of getting the workers a better deal. It also deprives the worker of the impetus to be an active member of their union.

In 2011 the Corbett Administration said that a Right-to-Work law was not a top priority but that the governor would sign it, if one reaches his desk. The winds of fortune have since changed for Governor. With approval ratings at record lows the governor is looking for a way to turn things around. Dan Denvir in the Philadelphia City Paper reported secret polling had been done surrounding the Philadelphia Schools crisis in June that showed Corbett would be best off blaming the teachers union for the crisis. An assault on organized labor might be a larger part of the governors plan to turn his image around.

Just last week, Eric Boem of the PA Independent reported that known anti-labor advocate, Dick Yeungling said in a meeting with the Pennsylvania Press Club that he would like to see lawmakers in Harrisburg approve a measure to make Pennsylvania a “right-to-work state,” because he believes it would help bring jobs to Pennsylvania. This is likely not the case, and even if it were the quality of those positions and similar ones would be significantly degraded by the effects of the law on organized labor's power.

It is important then to remember the gains of the past and even the benefits we reap today from the American Labor Movement. Nowadays they sit on a precarious perch.

Here's a labor day classic!