The need for unions is still evident as we reflect on Labor Day, 2015. Many small businesses are forced out of the competition by large businesses. Corporate officers fatten their salaries at the expense of employees on the bottom rung. Job scarcity makes it hard to switch employers so management can refuse to offer amenities beyond a subsistence level.
Samuel Gompers worked to change these injustices. Born in 1850, Gompers went from a factory worker to become the first president of the American Federation of Labor. His quest for workers to receive higher wages, shorter hours, and collective bargaining was cut short by illness. He died in San Antonio in 1924 after attending the inauguration of Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles.
A statue of Gompers, across from the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on Market Street, was erected in 1982 for the AFL-CIO convention held in San Antonio. Sculptor Bette Jean Alden portrayed Gompers with a contract in his hand to symbolize the beneficial agreements that can come between capital and labor.
The pedestal of the statue has a plaque which reads:
“What does labor want? We want more school houses and less jails. More books and less guns. More learning and less vice. More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge. We want more… opportunities to cultivate our better nature.”
–Samuel Gompers.
These are words to remember on Labor Day.
Twenty-four Hour Day (a poem by Tom Keene)
Eight hours to sleep.
Eight hours to work.
Eight hours to do what we will.
Union workers slogan (1817-1938)
Eight hours to sleep:
Time to scrub our fears,
focus our hopes,
rest and attune ourselves.
Eight hours to work:
Time to do, to make
out of thought, skill, care
a work that matters,
that stands on its hind legs,
says to all and ourselves, “Good job.”
Eight hours to do what we will:
Time to choose the meanings
that make our survival matter,
to make of sleep and work a meaning
that whispers, shouts, “Behold.”
Poet Tom Keene did his military duty as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division during the Korean War. He has served his community as an organizer, a teacher and a founding member of both the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Archdiocese and the San Antonio Community Radio Corporation (one of the parent organizations of Texas Public Radio). He holds post-graduate degrees in Psychology, Religious Studies and Theology and is professor of religious studies at Our Lady of the Lake University.
*Top image: A statue of Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor, on Market Street in San Antonio. Photo by Kay Richter.
Related Stories:
Labor Day Rally to Highlight Failing Health Care System
More park lands
On October 7, 1992, Jerry Brown, now governor of California, but back then a fierce opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flew into San Antonio, to protest the signing of the trade pact. The prime minister of Canada, the President of Mexico, and the President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, were gathered downtown for the ceremonial agreement.
Earlier that spring, Brown had lost to Bill Clinton in the Democratic primaries. I had helped organize a Jerry Brown campaign event at UTSA in March of that year, so the Brown folks called me to help navigate Jerry and his small staff when he arrived in San Antonio.
A lively and vociferous group of 150 anti-NAFTA protesters, mainly union members from local trade groups, gathered at the Samuel Gompers statue. Along with Jerry, we all held signs, chanted, and marched to the nearby 19th-century German-English School building, where the signing took place.
The local and national press largely ignored us and lavished all their attention on the bigwigs who, amid lavish gift giving, went on and on extolling NAFTA’s supposed benefits. Mayor Wolff was a big supporter of NAFTA as was future Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
NAFTA accelerated the downward wages of workers in the United States as unions have continued to lose rights, and U.S. citizens have lost environmental and health protections in global trade deals: http://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/
I see the same dynamics at work today as I did in 1992. The entrenched Party Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton, cozy up to Wall Street while the working class continues to decline.
There is hope, however, in the name of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic challenger for President, who is gaining on Hillary and drawing huge crowds at campaign stops. Bernie was against NAFTA, and has been consistent on issues that affect the working class, including health care and education, for over thirty years. His supporters, including me, will be out in full force today all around San Antonio.
“…Less grotesque statues commemorating my work”
Fewer. It’s Fewer. It’s not hard to grok. Less refers ONLY to things that can be quantified. Fewer is ALWAYS about things we can count. So it’s “fewer jails and fewer guns”.
It might have been a quote from a talk he gave…
plus, according to The Economist “The difference between “less” and “fewer”
Aug 27th 2015, 23:50 BY R.L.G
>>Many people insist on a bright-line distinction between “fewer” and “less”, and get quite agitated by the subject… In the traditional rule, “fewer” goes with count nouns and “less” with mass nouns….
BUT….this is a PREFERENCE, not a rule, perhaps because there are many shadings on it. The mass-count distinction does not always line up with the real-life properties of things, [and] in casual speech, “less” is often used with count nouns [and as far back as the 9th century] the so-called rule has never reflected reality.<<
Labor unions would help small businesses? Care to explain that premise?
I retire in 8 days – combined with Labor Day, a great time to reflect on who to thank for my ability to do that after my years of employment. Timely article on an unknown (by me, anyway) hero who, along with others, dedicated his life to making jobs safer and less stressful on bodies, minds, and souls. Thanks for the history lesson, Don Mathis.