Labor Day, 4 September, 2017
101 Main
Street #380
Huntington
Beach, CA 92648
Dear
Congressman,
Re: Labor
It’s an odd
word, when you think about it: Labor. When I grew up in England, my father was
a reliable supporter of the Labour Party, favoring the rights and welfare of
the men and women who constitute the labor force, the “working class.” And when
I first came to America I was quite surprised—and pleased—to discover a rapidly
diminishing working class, an aspiration on the part of virtually all working
Americans to become, and be recognized as a part of the great and ever-growing
middle class.
This was
surely due in good part to the strength of the unions in post-war America. By
the early 1960s, when I arrived in this country, they still wielded great—and
to my mind beneficial—power. I think of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers
Union... It was Ronald Reagan, was it not—ironically once a good union man
himself, and one who profited enormously from union action—who started the
process of union disempowerment? I remember his fierce, vindictive, and very public attack
on the air traffic controllers’ union. It was referred to in a New York Times
op-ed piece years later, in 2011, as “the strike that busted unions.” Since
then, American unions have continued to decline, with a resultant loss in
strong representation for workers’ rights.
Today,
alas, you and your Republican colleagues resist any meaningful action to
improve the lives of the people who work hard for an often meager living. You
refuse to consider even a minimum wage, as workers labor long hours for $6 or
$7 while executives rake in obscene amounts of money. If you won’t consider a
minimum wage for works, I’m sure you would not favor a “maximum wage” for their
bosses—though this would surely be a good idea, to help control the growing and
increasingly poisonous disparity of wealth.
So please,
Congressman, today, a thought for the unions, for the good they have done; and
a thought for the hard-working people of this country, who so often receive a
pittance for their Labor. It’s their day. They deserve better than they get
from their government.
Respectfully,
Peter
Clothier, Ph.D.
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