We Need a Vibrant Labor Day in This Country to Lift Up Working People Far and Wide

Labor Day in Reality for September 2, 2024 is a huge, ignored asset, except by the commercial interests offering “sales.” A neglected Labor Day symbolizes the decline of labor unions and the absence of vigorous leadership generating higher levels of energy for Labor supremacy over Capital. Up to now, many labor leaders have had little focused interest in making Labor Day a grand national media day, from appearances on the Sunday news talk shows to producing thousands of events around the country that nourish labor solidarity, regardless of political labels.

Corporatist predations and exploitations make all workers, regardless of their political leanings, bleed the same color. Vibrant Labor Day events would be grounded not in nostalgia or self-anthems, but in the vital need to overcome worsening structural injustices at all levels of the workplace.

Overdue worker necessities include a living wage, affordable universal health care, child tax credits, the Western European safety nets of paid childcare, paid family leave and maternal care. Crackdowns on corporate crimes, fraud and abuse, and ending autocratic workplaces under fine print concessionary contracts which turn workers into modern-day serfs are also needed.

The Trumpsters want to TAKE AWAY many existing worker rights and limit the ability of unions to gain power. The AFL-CIO has highlighted several anti-worker policies of the Project 2025 Agenda developed by the Trumpsters. It includes:

• Banning unions for public service workers;
• Firing civil service workers and replacing them with Trump anti-union loyalists;
• Letting bosses eliminate unions mid-contract;
• Letting companies stop paying overtime and allowing states to opt out of federal overtime and minimum wage laws; and
• Eliminating child labor protections.

Communities can organize events on reversing corporate-managed trade agreements. Depending on the location, special events can be tailored, especially in swing states, to give workers a platform to talk about the outsourcing of jobs to low-wage repressive countries and other attacks on labor. Assemblies, rallies, voter registration drives, marches, demonstrations and even agenda-driven parades – a lost tradition in most regions – could build support for a pro-worker agenda. Organizing these events could either induce or demand commitments by invited candidates for office in November. No diverting candidate handshakes, fake smiles and sweet talk on this no-nonsense day.

Firm commitments, wrapped in a “WORKER COMPACT” for America, in the weeks after Labor Day, can be tied to enabling legislation, copies of which can be distributed at the events. Challenging anti-labor laws like Taft-Hartley and weaknesses in NLRB procedures, weak corporate sanctions, coming out for card checks, etc., should be a part of the “WORKER COMPACT.” In truth, Labor Day could also be an occasion for formally summoning Senators and Representatives and state lawmakers to worker-organized and conducted Town Meetings. (See: Sending Citizens Summons to Members of Congress at nader.org or my book “Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think” for boilerplate formal summons language.)

The publicized focus on concrete improvements in livelihoods and shifts of power advancing the lives of workers where they work and raise their families will excite voters and motivate them to raise their own sense of significance and encourage them to participate in Labor Day actions with fellow workers. The momentum can be carried forward to election day showing the stark contrasts between the pro-worker and anti-worker candidates and political parties.

Labor Day is the opening bell for the final stretch drive before election day. (See my August 17, 2022 column: To Democrats: Make Labor Day A Workers’ Action Day).

In a winner-take-all Electoral College system, a 10% turnout from eligible non-voters and turning out more occasional voters will answer, with jackhammer determination, the age-old voter question of “Which Side Are You On?” Politicians and political party officials who don’t show up due to their indentured corporatism will be exposed in the raw by name. The Labor movement arouses and achieves dominance as stronger and more resolute, sweeping aside the “divide and conquer” manipulations that dominate reporting in the rancid social and mainstream media.

Purposeful Labor Day events will also bring forth support and participation by civic organizations. Nationwide, they have millions of members.

There are six weeks or so to Labor Day. Too much of the AFL-CIO sat out the last election (2022) leaving it up to “the more credible locals” according to Damon Silver. An aroused AFL-CIO can provide the galvanizing strategy and resources to use Labor Day as it should be used, and then some, to build a decisive momentum for November and beyond. Used to defeatism, accustomed to tying themselves unconditionally to the corporate Democratic Party – itself suffering from this trait – this reversal would shock the media and the young generation into attentiveness.

There are many Labor Leaders who would spearhead a massive Labor Day event including Sara Nelson of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Mark Dimondstein of the American Postal Workers Union, and other long-time labor union leaders and activists such as Baldemar Velasquez (Farm Labor Organizing Committee), John Samuelsen (Transport Workers Union), Carl Rosen (UE General President), Gene Bruskin (National Labor Network for a Ceasefire) and RoseAnn DeMoro (retired executive director of National Nurses United), Larry Cohen (CWA former president) and many others. And the pulsating Culinary Union in Nevada and the UAW have shown some of labor’s true potential to galvanize support for a “WORKERS COMPACT.”

Some elected candidates can bear down publicizing this venture, as well as some suggested sparkplugs such as the great author/speaker Jim Hightower. What is needed, for starters, is a major national call for action and then moving into person-to-person outreach. Adequate funding is essential and grassroots outreach will be much more effective than millions of dollars spent on corporate conflicted media consultants craving their 15% commissions from forgettable Democratic Party TV ads.

Imagine a huge rally next to the New York Stock Exchange to demand a stock, bond, derivatives tiny progressive sales tax that can raise over $300 to $500 billion a year. New York State has collected and rebated this tax since 1981 — about $40 million a day to the brokers. Hundreds of billions of foregone dollars could have been devoted to specific necessities of New Yorkers. See the ongoing corporate campaign website: greedvsneed.org

Time is of the essence, but there is still time to make Labor Day a lasting Workers Action Event. A new tradition, if you will.