One hundred years ago workers, especially in railroad and steel, regularly worked twelve-hour shifts six days a week. In 1880 one sixth of American workers (1,118,000) were children under the age of sixteen. In 1889 alone 22,000 railroad workers were killed or injured on the job. Because wages fluctuated with the economy, the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892 cut pay between 18% and 26% leading to the Homestead Strike that ended in bloody violence. Only a century ago the human dignity of American workers was sacrificed to the new wave of industrialization.

A sense of solidarity and purpose gripped union members that first Labor Day with slogans like "An injury to one is an injury to all." They were optimistic about making a difference. The issues at the time included securing the 8-hour workday, eliminating child labor, minimizing unsafe work conditions and mandating a fair wage.

Labor Day 2000 finds most workers in the U.S. living a middle-class life. The 8-hour day has become standard and child labor is outlawed. Yet, 10 million workers still receive minimum wage and vast numbers work with no health insurance. While companies cannot easily change wages according to economic highs and lows, they can employ a contingent workforce of temps, part-timers and contract labor. In today’s market system, workers see themselves as independent entrepreneurs selling their work skills to the highest bidder. Even well-educated workers recognize they will work for numerous companies before retirement and possibly change careers two or three times. The social fabric of loyalty between many workers and employers appears shredded.

But, the single greatest difference between the first Labor Day and Labor Day 2000 remains the global economy. Today that arrangement weakens the rights of workers everywhere. Corporations are free to move capital across international borders, finding countries with low wages to produce goods. Two effects flow from this power. First, host governments restrict unions and social rights of workers in order not to discourage foreign investment. Second, transnational corporations can move, or threaten to move, jobs from developed countries, thus mitigating the power of organized labor. In the end both American and foreign workers lose.

The International Labor Organization, an arm of the U.N., adopted resolutions covering five basic human rights for all workers. They include the right to organize unions and the right to bargain collectively with employers. Additionally the ILO recognizes that governments have the right to restrict child labor, to prohibit forced labor and to outlaw discrimination. Building a commitment to these principles by the international community and especially by individual American corporations promises a bill of rights to all workers in the global economy.

Today over 46 million children under 14 work in factories and fields and millions of adult workers log 70 hours a week on assembly lines. Prison labor is forced to produce for international markets and women suffer discrimination in the workplace. Many times these labor abuses translate into cheap prices for American discount stores.

What did you do last Labor Day? Whatever you did, like most, you probably didn’t give much thought to the underlying significance of the day. For most people, Labor Day usually just signals the end of summer for American workers. But for people of faith, it offers a time to pause and reflect about how far labor has come and what issues remain. Then to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do about the injustices?”

Fr. John Rausch, a Glenmary priest, teaches at the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center, Berea, Ky.   His column appears monthly in many Catholic journals and in ours courtesy of the Friends of the Good News.  Join the Friends of the Good News and help spread the Gospel.
Read other articles of Spiritual Enlightenment in the October 2000 edition of The Charismatics or return to the Main Menu by clicking on the blue.