Mixed in with the alt country, country classics, reggae, hip-hop, rock, opera and pop in our iPod, a few old union songs occasionally slip into the mix. Just today, a couple of the shrillest tunes shuffled up as we drove, and we found ourselves singing along:
. . .There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you. . . .
And to this little ditty (song to the tune of the Doxology, no less):
Praise boss when morning work-bells chime.
Praise him for bits of overtime.
Praise him whose wars we love to fight.
Praise him, fat leech and parasite.
Naturally, we grew a bit reverent toward those who'd fought to get the day off, as well as grateful for our present-day negotiating team. Sad to say, what with news of buried miners and a war propped up by private contractors, those old tunes didn't strike us as relics today, but samples waiting for a fresh remix.
Not that the local media would air the remix.
Today's Labor Day coverage in the district's two largest circulation dailies illustrates a couple of the standard press narratives about unions. For a Mankato Free Press feature, Labor Day: The holiday of work, the local reporter interviewed area labor leaders, after starting with the standard, "What is Labor Day?" lead:
. . .Paul Marquardt has a more authentic take, as befits a labor union official.
“I’d like people to think of the struggles that our grandparents and great-grandparents endured to create a middle class in this country,” says the local AFL-CIO president.
“Without unions, we wouldn’t have a middle class in this country. You’d have the rich, and you’d have the poor.”
What many American workers take for granted — the 40-hour work week, unemployment insurance, pensions and workman’s compensation — are the fruits of a 19th century labor movement that led to a federal designation:
The first Monday each September shall be set aside to celebrate the workingman and the social and economic achievements of American workers.
“People should take the day to reflect and be proud of what they do. Without the union movement, we’d all be working longer hours for less pay and less fringe benefits,” says Mark Maguet, business agent for Electricians Local 243, which has 980 members in southern Minnesota.
Some say those conditions are filtering back into the American workplace.
Marquardt, for one, sees a lot of similarities now between employers, immigrant workers, and the exploitive working conditions that spawned most of our nation’s labor laws in the 1930s.
“It’s basically 1938 all over again,” he says. “And we have corporate America shipping our jobs to communist countries. We’re supposed to feel good about it?”
John Nowak, area field agent for United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, says the current issue of Hispanic rights in the workplace hearkens to earlier eras when immigrant workers proliferated.
“Every 30 to 50 years you’re fighting the same battles we did early in our history,” Nowak says.
It's interesting to see where the article goes next: a public awareness firm in Washington DC:
This past week the union-watchdog group Center for Union Facts launched a national ad campaign targeting labor leaders for turning their backs on the interests of employees.
Watchdog group? Sourcewatch tells a different story:
The Center for Union Facts is a secretive front group for individuals and industries opposed to union activities. It is part of lobbyist Rick Berman's family of front groups including the Employment Policies Institute. The domain name www.unionfacts.com was registered to Berman & Co. in May 2005.
Where does the Center for Union Facts get its money? That's not public information:
United Press International noted that "the group's spokesman refused to release the names of its donors or say where its funding came from." [7]
Berman told Bloomberg reporter Kim Bowman that he had raised "about $2.5 million from companies, trade organizations and individuals, whom he declined to identify." [8]
PR Watch looks at Rick Berman here. American Rights at Work places it in the anti-union network. Wikipedia calls it:
. . .one of several groups created by Richard Berman. Berman’s Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm, Berman and Company, specializes in research, communications, and creative advertising.
Watchdog group? On the contrary, it's a public relations effort. No wonder today's editorial reads as it does if the paper can't get that simple anti-union fact right.
Unions, on the other hand, must report their finances to the Department of Labor. The records are public, and union members can find out how their dues are spent. Center for Union Facts? Right to Work? Good luck finding out if your company spends some of the fruit of your labor to help these groups in the quest to make (or keep) you powerless in the workplace.
But at least the Free Press tried with its coverage, and readers know that organized labor is alive and kicking in Mankato.
It's far worse at the Rochester Post Bulletin. Despite the court victory of the "Rochester 19", union workers illegally fired at the Holiday Inn Express or an ongoing organizing drive, or other active union activity in Rochester, all the daily can muster on this day is a column by the head of the national Right to Work Committee, another Beltway anti-union group that doesn't even pretend toward transparency about where its money comes from. Oh, and there's a news item about the U of M workers going on strike Wednesday.
Photo: The Rochester 19, from Workday Minnesota.
Update: The Albert Lea Tribune offered a history lesson here.
KAAL reports: Unions Reversing Downward Trend:
But there are signs that downward trend might be reversing itself.
The Department of Labor says full-time workers who belonged to unions earned, on average, 13% more than their non-union counterparts.
And that's always been a goal of labor unions.
The Strib opines Need workers? Help pay their tuition and praises UPS for providing tuition benefits for its part-timers. What the Strib doesn't tell you is that benefit is part of a union contract. UPS workers in Minnesota are represented by our friends at Teamsters Local 638.
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