esrosedotblog

I bet not one person on holiday this weekend is thinking about the place of the labor movement in our national history.

Well, except for me.

And yet that is what it is meant to celebrate.

When I was a kid, labor unions meant something.

I belonged to a union, the Retail Clerks International. It was a closed shop. We had to.

But there was also the elevation of "labor" as an important element of our society.

Not so much anymore.

What happened?

High tech happened. That cut a lot of muscle out of the movement.

Corruption happened. Unions got dirty.

Bigness happened. Consolidating the union efforts into only a couple of big organizations actually lessened the power.

How long has it been since a strike disabled an industry enough?

Maybe the autos. But Detroit lost the market. Unions helped.

In the "old days" coal was a big one. A guy named John L. Lewis threatened strikes that would shut down major segments of industry. Now no one uses coal.

And so on.

Time buries everything eventually. I am old enough now to have seen a few of the funerals.

It is OK. Time also marches on.

Labels: unions