It’s a sad state of affairs when your humble author gets up on a holiday, cracks his knuckles, and sets out to find what horrible thing Donald Trump has done that directly contravenes the spirit of that holiday. Christmas? Tweet about something he hates. Fourth of July? Tweet about taking away some new marginalized group’s freedom. Even the holidays that aren’t celebrated, but merely observed — the more solemn of national holidays — get the opposite-day treatment.
Today is, of course, Labor Day. Whether you’re conversant with the history of Labor Day or not, it’s enough to say that it is observed in honor of the labor movement and the wresting of control of the means of production from the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Workers still don’t completely own their own labor, of course, and are exploited at every turn and wherever possible or even feasible by the “free market” so championed by Republicans, but their legacy still stands: The labor union is the single most powerful method of collective action short of riots in the streets for workers to organize, demand fair treatment, and get what they’re owed.
So I guess we could figure that this would probably be Donald Trump’s least favorite holiday, given his notorious employment of ineligible workers that he can underpay and discard as necessary. Monday proved that theory correct, as Trump went after Richard Trumka, the president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO:
Just watched AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on @FoxNews and thought to myself how different he is on TV than he is when he is with me at the White House. Likes what we are doing until the cameras go on. We got robbed on Trade and everything else while his Dems just sat back….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2019
….and watched. NAFTA is the worst Trade Deal ever made – terrible for labor – and Richard let it stand. No wonder unions are losing so much. The workers will vote for me in 2020 (lowest unemployment, most jobs ever), and should stop paying exorbitant $Dues, not worth it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2019
Republicans depend on workers to be fooled by phrases like “workplace choice” and to revolt against paying union dues — that’s how they’ve been able to successfully decrease union participation over the last 40 years by about half.
The truth is, however, that owners and investors and CEOs are vastly outnumbered by workers, and one day their tricks will stop working. Let’s make that a holiday too.
Featured image via screen capture
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