What Labor Day ?

I always thought Labor Day was on May 1st. Anyway, that what the rest of the world thinks except here in the United States. May 1st is meant to recognize organized labor's social and economic achievements. If you apply that same idea to Labor Day here, you'll quickly notice that there is no Labor Day the first Monday in September.

In the US, the last major legislative victory for Labor was in 1935 with the passage of the Wagner Act which guaranteed workers the right to bargain on an equal footing with management and the right to organize. Its been downhill for most part ever since.

The thought of Labor movements actually having an impact back then must have really scared the big corporations (the "crisis" of democracy as they call it). And the corporations certainly didn't sit back and allow the "crisis" to worsen. Since 1935, the corporate offensive on Labor has been very effective.

The most interesting technique that was used to avert the "crisis" in democracy is the 'Mohawk Valley Formula' which was originally developed by the Remington Rand Corporation. This was called a 'scientific method of strike-breaking'. The main goal of this formula was to generate popular fear and hatred of labor in the general public. From wikipedia, "The Mohawk Valley formula was a corporate plan for strikebreaking to discredit union leaders, frighten the public with the threat of violence, use local police and vigilantes to intimidate strikers, form puppet associations of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortify workplaces, employ large numbers of replacement workers, and threaten to close the plant if work is not resumed."

So we appear to have a steady downward slide into wage slavery:

• Minimum wage is a joke. In fact, its so low that a 40 hour week is by default not viable.
• American union membership in the private sector has in recent years fallen under 9%--levels not seen since 1932.
• In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration essentially informed the business world that they were not going to prosecute them for violating the law. One of the things that happened is that OSHA, the Office of Safety and Health Administration, regulations were either not investigated or prosecuted.
• Service sector jobs ? What's not to like ?
• Bush's anti-labor actions
• See Effort to make unions disappear from ProjectCensored.
• See The Bush Administration's Anti-Labor Record is Bad for Working Families from the Democratic Policy Committee.

What we have here is a clear case of Doublespeak (or Newspeak) with Corporations commemorating their victory over Labor and calling it "Labor Day".