Today is Labor Day, a day for Americans to celebrate and honor the real working-class individuals who made America the legendary country many of us remember. Labor Day is meant to celebrate the struggles of those who stood up for and were part of the working class, whose sacrifices have given large numbers of people in America and worldwide lives that are more that just simply existing.
It was never exclusively the rich - the "job creators" as Republicans try to call them these days - that brought about the long-term stability and prosperity of the working class. It was working men and women, and organizations like labor unions, that caused those in power to finally take the concerns of working people seriously.
Sadly, in America today, Labor Day has ceased to have much meaning at all.
Of course, when you have a political and social system that's been unjustly set against those who truly work for a living, by those who don't have a clue on what it is to do an honest day's work (or what an honest day's work is truly worth), you get the kind of inequality in the workplace Americans currently face every day.
Many of you are among those workers who don't know what it's like to be part of a workforce where employers didn't treat you like a number, like a replaceable part, just another money-sucking expense. Today we offer you a few facts to help you understand who and what Labor Day is supposed to celebrate - and why some would like this holiday and its meaning to be forgotten.
If your pay, or your work schedule is based (even loosely) on the idea of a 40 hour work week, big business bosses didn't do that for you. Organized labor and collective bargaining did that. Corporations have fought the 40-hour work week for years, and they usually break that rule whenever they can get away with it.
Unions gave you the eight hour day and the 40 hour work week, and by doing so gave you the weekend you just finished - or may still be enjoying.
The minimum wage you started earning as a young worker? Labor unions helped to get that for you, too.
Even though pension plans and access to health insurance have been shrinking more and more over the last thirty years, the basic ideas of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would never have happened without the support of the working men and women of organized labor. Our general system of retirement planning and health insurance in America would also never have been possible, were it not for men & women of unions fighting - and, sadly, dying at times - for Americans to have those benefits that we now too often take for granted.
Without working class Americans & their unions, children would still likely be working in factories, as they do in many other places in the world.
Today, if you are lucky enough to have the day off, we simply ask that you think about the reality of working life in America - and around the world - and realize a key fact.
No matter what economic class you currently live in, or what you think of labor unions and the American working class, without them, your life and the lives of millions of people would be drastically different - and likely MUCH worse.
Enjoy your day off (if you're indeed lucky enough to not be working today) - and remember those who made it possible for you to have any days off in the first place.
