Monday Reading -- Labor Day Edition

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

As Americans mark Labor Day, E.J. Dionne, Jr., reminds us what labor unions meant to this country, and what's been lost over time:

It was known as the Treaty of Detroit, but it did not end a shooting war. In 1950, Walter Reuther, the legendary leader of the United Auto Workers union, and Charlie Wilson, the CEO of General Motors, agreed to a historic labor contract that bought the automaker five years of labor peace.

After more than a decade of sometimes violent conflict and short-term contracts, Wilson wanted stability so he could expand his company. The result was a trendsetting deal that included not only substantial wage increases but also generous pension and health-care coverage. The Post labeled it “a great event in industrial history.” [snip]

In the years since the Treaty of Detroit, the negotiating leverage of American workers has been vastly diminished. In the absence of powerful unions, we have yet to find an alternative and sustainable way of representing employees’ interests.

We have also lost the sense of solidarity that originally inspired Labor Day. Greenhouse recounts a conversation with his then-86-year-old mother when he was in Wisconsin covering Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker’s offensive to gut collective bargaining and cut public employee benefits.

“When I was growing up,” she told him, “people used to say, ‘Look at the good wages and benefits that people in a union have. I want to join a union.’ Now, people say, ‘Look at the good wages and benefits that union members have. They’re getting more than I get. That’s not fair. Let’s take away some of what they have.’ ”

The op/ ed goes on to quote Binyamin Applebaum's view that, since the late '60's policy makers "have subsumed the interests of Americans as producers to the interests of Americans as consumers, trading well- paid jobs for low cost electronics."

Last May, Kate Barrows, Ethan Miller and Kayla Blado wrote about "the millennialization of American labor":

In the last year, however, American workers have loudly and clearly said, “Enough!” Teachers, musicians, actors, hotel workers, grocery store employees, and many others have gone on strike—the most workers to have walked off the job than in any year since 1986. Crucially, these strikers won most of their key demands.

Just as crucially, the disproportionately young workers in hitherto largely unorganized industries—digital media journalists, graduate student workers, and nonprofit employees—have been successfully winning union representation, too. Indeed, millennials’ positive attitude toward unions is driving much of the new wave of organizing. According to Gallup, support for labor unions is at a 15-year high, with 65 percent of workers under 35 approving of labor unions. In 2017, 76 percent of new union members—almost 200,000 workers—were under 35 years old.

Many of these young people graduated from high school and college in the wake of the Great Recession, and the slowest economic recovery of the post-World War II era. Years of high unemployment and underemployment, low wages, mountains of student debt, and the most expensive health-care system among developed countries have helped create a generation of workers that supports progressive policies over unfettered capitalism.

Matthew Rozsa has some facts about the history of American labor, including the "thoughts" of the current occupant of the White (Supremacist) House:

Setting aside that his economic policies have focused on corporate deregulation and disempowering workers' movements, bear in mind that even the president's supposed affinity for coal miners is fraudulent. Take this excerpt from a 1990 interview with Playboy Magazine:

I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son. If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination — or whatever — to leave their mine. They don’t have “it.”

Needless to say, Trump is not regarded as a generous or compassionate boss in the business world, a lack of empathy for the working class which has carried over into his presidency. These include a documented pattern of stiffing workers after they performed services for him, with at least 60 lawsuits since the 1980s alleging that Trump and his businesses failed to pay contractors and laborers for their work. During his presidency, Trump has failed to keep American jobs from being exported in spite of his campaign promises, and he has done nothing to advance workers' rights in other ways. 

And yet, too many vote for him;  the fear of "the other" is a strong drug. It reminds us of the saying: "The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe as its handle was made of wood and they thought it was one of them."

As always, we recommend you check out Infidel 753"s link round- up for a kaleidescope of items of interest from around the internet, including several links to posts about corporate monster Apple and the value of  treating tipped workers generously.

BONUS:  More good reads about American labor from American Prospect here, here, here, and here.