Dear Tom:
In the early 1930’s, my Mother, like her older sister and brothers, dropped out of school after completing 8th grade to help provide for her family. The Great Depression was in full force and Mother worked twelve hour shifts in the local silk mill for what we today would consider pennies. When she collected her paycheck, she immediately gave it to her mother to help provide for her twelve brothers and sisters. Late in her life she still recalled how her fingers hurt from the long hours of working the threads.
The males in the family worked for the local Pennsylvania coal companies. Until they were twelve years old they were called “Breaker Boys” and they collected loose coal in buckets. They dealt with poor ventilation and coal dust that emptied directly into their lungs. When they reached their twelfth birthday they were “lucky” enough to transcend into the bowels of the mine, for more pay but the constant threat of explosions and mine structural failure.
During those days work place danger was a fact of life. My Father, in an effort to escape this life joined the Army Air Force after graduating from High School (Only to be sent to Pearl Harbor for his duty station where he witnessed the birth of World War II.) Incidentally, in 1945 after finishing his tour of duty he returned to mainstream America and returned to the mines where he worked only six days and decided he could not live the life his father did, he would not return from the mines on a daily basis spitting out and coughing coal dust. So, he reenlisted into the Army.
Through the years through the intervention of unions working with people like my Mother and Father the workplace has become safer; child labor has been restricted; discrimination of workers because of race, sex, age, sexual orientation and political beliefs has become illegal. Employees who have disabilities or need medical leave for family or because of pregnancy or the birth or adoption have become protected. Minimum wage laws and overtime laws protect employees against additional abuse. I look at what is going on in Wisconsin and a handful of other states across the nation in the attacks against public sector unionism and I realize that the rights that my family spent 80 years perfecting, mean nothing to those whose goals gravitate towards profit, power, manipulation and control.
Sometimes I think we live in a mixed up world where Wisconsin teachers who barely make $50,000 a year are ridiculed; yet no one ever seems to have a problem with the professional baseball player or basketball player who often do not finish college yet make up to $20 million a year. Banking Executives can make millions of dollars in bonus’ for practically running our economy into the ground, yet we make a national scene over public employees because the government pays 8% towards their retirement, and oh yes, don’t forget, they actually get 10 or 12 holidays each year…
Collective Bargaining is a high stakes battle of give and take for both management and labor. Either side seldom gets all that they wanted. In tough times like we are in currently, salary increases are few and cuts are plentiful. In more productive economic years, wages and benefits increase. My observation is that collective bargaining works pretty well for both sides- a happy work force is more productive and productivity ensures wealth for management. I can only think that the real reason for those who want to limit collective bargaining has probably more to do with the power of politics as well as political contributions that come from organized labor as opposed to balancing any budget, creating a more productive workforce and creating jobs.
Maybe it is time we re-think some of our values. What do you think?
Very Truley Yours,
M.E,K,
Very Truley Yours,
M.E,K,
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