Thoughts on the end of Labor Day

by: Thurman Hart

Mon Sep 05, 2011 at 08:43:37 PM EDT

First, I celebrated Labor Day by sitting in Starbucks, hunched over my laptop, doing work that I will not get paid for, but is necessary for me to complete in order to actually do work I do get paid for. That strikes me as a bit ironic. But then, since organized labor has spent the last twenty-five years of my life ignoring me, I figure the least I can do is return the favor.

I have to say this: I believe that anyone who has a job needs a union. It's not only a vital right for workers, but it is a necessary check to the unlimited power employers wield in the work market. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell from my life, no union has cared at all about actually DOING...well, anything at all.

Here's the rub. There has been no difference at all. Even here in NJ when my employer was violating federal labor laws, I got no support. Oh, they filed a class action suit AFTER I'd lost my job because I refused to comply with an order to work off the clock...and I received $3.54 for that settlement a short six years later. This is in a STRONG UNION state.

Then there is the FACT that, as a dues-paying AFT member, I was relegated to second-class status within my union. My fellow union members have denied me full employment and paid me less than the going rate for the work that I do. They have insisted that taking on unpaid work is simply part of my job.

The fact is that unions, like most progressive groups, have sat on the sidelines under the assumption that people will simply see that their best interests actually lie with us (and I am including myself in the group "people who want unions to succeed"). Guess what? They don't see it! Forty-plus years into the Conservative Revolution and progressives still don't see the reality - YOU HAVE TO CONVINCE PEOPLE WHAT'S IN THEIR BEST INTEREST!

Look, common ordinary working people rose up en masse to protest estate taxes and to prevent universal healthcare from becoming a reality. They demanded that a virtual landed aristocracy be created while they themselves were deprived of the opportunity to seek medical attention. They look at their non-union paycheck (because the VAST majority of workers are non-union) and see that they get paid less and have fewer benefits than union-workers. They then see union workers complaining (validly, I would argue) that their work is not adequately compensated. Do you see the disconnect? How do YOU feel when someone who is doing better than you are complains about having a rough life? When Steve Forbes whines about his taxes, do you feel sorry for him? Or do you just think he's out of touch?

THAT is how unions are perceived. The truth is that our economy has evolved, but our unions haven't. As union membership has declined, and the economy moved out of union-heavy industries, wages and benefits have stagnated, if not receded. And the unions still haven't gotten the message: Change or die.

So our union movement - like our progressive movement - is dying on the vine. Soon there will be nothing left of Labor Day but the end of summer. On that day, we will be either reborn, or consigned to a heap of despair.

I, for one, cling to the hope of rebirth.