This Labor Day We Need Protest Marches, Not Parades
Posted on August 25th, 2011 | by A Worker |I have to agree with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on this one.  This Labor Day we need to party less and protest more. With the real unemployment rate at 17% and attacks on workers growing like cornstalks in farm country, we need to stand firm and say, “We won’t back down.”   Join members of IBEW Local 827 at the Labor Day Parade in Paterson, NJ on September 4th. We will march in solidarity with other workers and to let Verizon bosses know we plan to march to victory. Here’s Reich’s piece below:
Labor Day is traditionally a time for picnics and parades. But this year is no picnic for American workers, and a protest march would be more appropriate than a parade.
Not only are 25 million unemployed or underemployed, but American companies continue to cut wages and benefits. The median wage is still dropping, adjusted for inflation. High unemployment has given employers extra bargaining leverage to wring out wage concessions.
All told, it’s been the worst decade for American workers in a century. According to Commerce Department data, private-sector wage gains over the last decade have even lagged behind wage gains during the decade of the Great Depression (4 percent over the last ten years, adjusted for inflation, versus 5 percent from 1929 to 1939). Read the rest
