The holiday was created in honor of the American worker. But this year, there isn't much to celebrate.
By Kim Peterson on Fri, Sep 2, 2011 3:30 PM
Oh, the irony of celebrating Labor Day when unemployment is stuck at 9.1% and the country couldn't create any new jobs in August. Renaming it "Can't Get Labor Day" might be more appropriate this year.
Does anyone even remember why Labor Day exists? It dates back to 1894, when President Grover Cleveland made nice with the labor movement after unions clashed with railroads in the Pullman Strike.
Workers went on strike to protest low pay and 16-hour workdays, refusing to continue production and throwing the nation's railways into chaos. A military crackdown led to 13 worker deaths. Congress created Labor Day as an olive branch of sorts for union workers.
Much has changed. We don't have 16-hour days anymore. A fraction of Americans are in labor unions. Workers aren't trapped in the wage slavery that Upton Sinclair brought to light in his 1906 novel "The Jungle."
Yet the imbalance of power is the same. Corporate bosses take home tens of millions of dollars as worker bees struggle. If outsourcing or robotics can bring more profit, then that's the road many companies take -- workers be damned.
Wall Street and Main Street have never been farther apart. Even the Average Joe investor is now at a disadvantage. How can you beat the trading supercomputers that financial firms have installed just a short walk from the market floor?
The gap between rich and poor continues to grow. Wage inequality is at the highest levels since the Great Depression. From 1980 through 2005, the wealthiest 1% took home 80% of the country's increase in income.
Executives at Wal-Mart (WMT) can't rev up U.S. sales because their customers still live paycheck to paycheck. Yet Tiffany (TIF) just posted spectacular quarterly numbers.
A small, well-to-do portion of America has made its own economic recovery just fine. But many others are just trying to avoid going under. Nearly 15% of Americans were on food stamps this summer. More than 800,000 U.S. homes have gone into foreclosure.
There isn't much left for the American worker, and even the holiday created for that worker has lost its honor.
Labor Day has simply become summer's last hurrah, a final sendoff as we start a new school year and a new season. And maybe that's a good thing, because the state of the American worker is no cause for celebration.
Does anyone even remember why Labor Day exists? It dates back to 1894, when President Grover Cleveland made nice with the labor movement after unions clashed with railroads in the Pullman Strike.
Workers went on strike to protest low pay and 16-hour workdays, refusing to continue production and throwing the nation's railways into chaos. A military crackdown led to 13 worker deaths. Congress created Labor Day as an olive branch of sorts for union workers.
Much has changed. We don't have 16-hour days anymore. A fraction of Americans are in labor unions. Workers aren't trapped in the wage slavery that Upton Sinclair brought to light in his 1906 novel "The Jungle."
Yet the imbalance of power is the same. Corporate bosses take home tens of millions of dollars as worker bees struggle. If outsourcing or robotics can bring more profit, then that's the road many companies take -- workers be damned.
Wall Street and Main Street have never been farther apart. Even the Average Joe investor is now at a disadvantage. How can you beat the trading supercomputers that financial firms have installed just a short walk from the market floor?
The gap between rich and poor continues to grow. Wage inequality is at the highest levels since the Great Depression. From 1980 through 2005, the wealthiest 1% took home 80% of the country's increase in income.
Executives at Wal-Mart (WMT) can't rev up U.S. sales because their customers still live paycheck to paycheck. Yet Tiffany (TIF) just posted spectacular quarterly numbers.
A small, well-to-do portion of America has made its own economic recovery just fine. But many others are just trying to avoid going under. Nearly 15% of Americans were on food stamps this summer. More than 800,000 U.S. homes have gone into foreclosure.
There isn't much left for the American worker, and even the holiday created for that worker has lost its honor.
Labor Day has simply become summer's last hurrah, a final sendoff as we start a new school year and a new season. And maybe that's a good thing, because the state of the American worker is no cause for celebration.
