Labor Day

Today was Labor Day, did you know that Oregon was the first state to make it an official holiday? It's true!

Phyllis Schlafly died today at 92, the only bad thing about that is she lived until 92, before birth would have been better timing.

But back to Labor Day, it is an interesting holiday and really shows how the public view of labor and unions have changed in the nearly 125 years since the holiday started. It is possible to go your entire life without hearing about what Labor Day is actually for, we "celebrate" it mainly as a seasonal holiday and the start of the school year, and don't talk about what it really means.

Employers suck, they have almost all the power in the relationship between them and employees, and no one really to be accountable to even today, but time was it was worse, mandatory breaks, the forty hour work week, child labor laws, and so on are all relatively new concepts in the scheme of things, and people literally fought and died for them to become a reality.

I am not here to hammer on that point though, what struck me today is I am pretty sure that it would be impossible to make a Labor Day holiday today, if it didn't exist, we wouldn't create it, not anymore. We've spent the last few decades marginalizing those at the bottom of the ladder, who do the majority of the labor and who benefit most from labor protections and unions, those with no other choice but to take what they are given and smile about it. We say that you should be grateful for what you have, and that if you want more but don't have it you must be lazy and worthless.

It isn't true, don't be grateful, at least not to the employer, here's the thing about employers: The only thing they give you is what the law or cultural convention requires of them. You don't work overtime? Cool your employer doesn't want to pay it, you get your breaks? Cool your employer literally can be fined thousands of dollars per instance if they are caught not giving them to you. You get paid? Cool that is what they should be doing, they are buying your services and the amount they choose to pay for your services is the best indicator of how much they really care about you or your position. What is said when they offer you minimum wage is literally "I would pay you less for this but that is illegal".

The employer is not your friend and you should not view them as such. They take all they can and give the minimum they can get away with back.

Now I am not saying that is a bad thing exactly, I mean a business relationship should be defined by the benefits both parties bring to the table, but the employer more or less gets to define both themselves and their employee at the same time, and challenging that is pretty hard, that is why labor unions exist, to balance the scales of power.

What I am saying is don't give them anything more than what they are paying for if you can, they take enough and all they give is what the law makes them give, the law seems to weaken regularly so it is up to us to protect our own interests and to defend what we have, we can't give up more power willingly, not without a fight.

I firmly believe that within my lifetime labor and economics in the USA will look very, very different to how they do now, and I believe those changes will be for the better, but that doesn't do anything today and the cause is still worth supporting, even if it is only in small ways.