Labor Day gratitude. . .

My father taught me to respect work. 

But, he always went farther than that.  He also was careful to teach me to respect the people who performed the work, all people who worked, no matter what their job, status, tenure or wage. 

Now that he is gone, I find myself remembering his lessons each year as Labor Day comes round again. 

In his memory and for his instruction I find that I'm very grateful for. . .

• Sanitation workers
• Oil field hands
• Miners
• Commercial fishermen
• Home builders
• Construction workers
• Plumbers
• Electricians
• Truck drivers
• Postal workers
• Mechanics
• Ship workers
• Public transit workers
• Window washers
• Domestic workers
• Legal aids
• Actors
• Film makers
• Artists
• Musicians
• Singers
• Telecommunications workers
• Street and highway construction crews
• Bridge builders
• Street sweepers
• Utility workers
• Brick layers and masons
• Work workers
• HVAC technicians
• Waiters
• Parking attendants
• Secretaries
• Landscape employees
• Public School teachers
• University professors
• Counselors
• Lawyers
• Judges
• Political leaders
• Organized labor
• Architects
• Venture capitalists
• Non-profit employees
• Chefs
• Code Enforcement employees
• Ministers
• Doctors
• Dentists
• Nurses
• Orderlies
• Custodians
• Parks and Recreation workers
• Government employees
• Sales clerks
• Security personnel
• Members of the Armed Forces
• Police officers
• Dispatchers
• Carpenters
• Furniture makers
• Retail workers
• Wholesale supply workers
• Marketing workers
• Public relations workers
• Firemen
• Ambulance drivers
• ER staff members
• Child care workers
• Manufacturing workers
• Industrial employees
• Pilots
• Flight attendants
• CPS workers
• Community organizers
• Environmental workers
• Farmers
• Ranchers
• Mortgage bankers
• HR workers
• Accountants
• Bookkeepers
• A/R and A/P clerks
• IT workers
• Engineers--technical and trains!
• The list is endless!

We all need each other.  We all need what each produces and cares for.  Work, labor and fair wages stand near the heart of the realization of any "beloved community."

Celebrate labor today. . .your own and that of your fellows.

St. Patrick's Day and history from the underside. . .

Thinking of St. Patrick's Day draws my mind to the lives of Irish immigrants to America in the nineteenth and early twentiety centuries.  Telling the story of these folks seems important to me as I consider the challenges facing strangers, laboring people and newcomers, whoever they may be or whenever they arrive in the United States. 

No one wrote history from "the underside" quite like the late Howard Zinn.  I ran across the following interview as I was searching for material on Irish immigrants.  I found important insights into Zinn's work and the discovery of the entire American story.

RL: A People's History of the United States is probably your best-known work. So many people who read the book have had their eyes opened, not only by the conclusions you reach but by your whole approach to history. Could you spell out what you mean by "people's history''?

HZ: I guess what I mean by a "people's history'' is basically two things. First, the content of history, which is different from traditional history in that I am telling of the lives of the people who are generally ignored by traditional history. For instance, the so-called great "economic miracle'' of the United States between the Civil War and World War 1, when the United States becomes an enormously powerful industrial nation--that's presented traditionally as a great and wonderful triumphal experience.

But left out of these traditional histories--it was very clear to me as I was studying both as an undergraduate and graduate student--was the experience of working people. Who were the people who worked for Rockefeller's refineries? Who were the people who worked on the transcontinental railroad? Who were the Chinese immigrants and Irish immigrants who died while working on the railroads. The girls in the textile mills of New England --going to work in the mills at the age of 12, dying at the age of 25--they were absent. I wanted to bring in these people.

The other thing is simply a point of view, simply to look at history with a different point of view, not just a different point of view in the academic sense, but very specifically to look at the events of American history from the point of view of people who have not had a voice, people who have been oppressed, and people whose struggles have not been noticed.

So I decided I wanted to tell the story of Columbus from the standpoint of the Indians that he encountered.

RL: Which is not the standard account.

HZ: And I wanted to tell the story of the Mexican War not just from the standpoint of the American soldiers who didn't know what they were doing, where they were going--many of them immigrants, desperate for a little money and a little attention--not only to tell the story from the standpoint of the GI's, which I wanted to do with every war, but also to tell the story from the standpoint of the so-called enemy, to see the Mexican War from the standpoint of the Mexicans--how "nice'' it is for them to have the United States take half their country as a result of the war and to commit atrocities in the course of it.

I wanted to tell the story of American history from the standpoint of women, Black people, Indians, of working people and of radicals and protesters.

As soon as I made that decision, it was clear this was going to be a different kind of history. And I have no doubt that the reason my book has reached so many people--to my surprise, actually, and certainly to the surprise of the publisher--is that people who read it were suddenly struck by the fact that I was telling American history from a very different viewpoint.

To read the entire interview click here.

Working people

E. P. Thompson published The Making of the English Working Class in 1963. I picked up my well-worn copy the other day for the first time in about thirty years. So, it's been a while since I worked my way through the story rise of labor in England. Once you get into Thompson's rhythm and style, the book flows. And that is good, the book is a tome--over 800 pages--not exactly a quick, weekend read, but well worth the effort.

The history of democracy and the growing insistence on democratic reform in England in the days just before, during and following the French and American revolutions makes for fascinating reading. The London and provincial corresponding societies provided regular meeting opportunities for revolutionary minded, anti-monarchical thinkers, most of whom were common, laboring people--artisans, tradesmen, dissenting clergy and the like. The interests of these groups--often persecuted, spied upon and, at times, suspected of plotting insurrection--remained largely unchanged across the reach of English labor history, at least in principle. Much of the conflict and debate stirred by these groups pitted a vision of traditional "moral economies" against emerging "free markets"--one product of modernity and a system served by expanding trade options.

The common consumers--those who worked to produce and to consume--suffered at the hands of those who controlled and manipulated prices in the marketplace. The local groups of correspondence allowed for debate, conversation, organizing and resistance in the face of what was perceived as clear injustice.

I can't resist posting a couple of excerpts from Thompson's brilliant work. What's said about history? Something like past being prologue, isn't it?

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Food riots were sometimes uproarious, like the "Great Cheese Riot: at Nottingham's Goose Fair in 1764, when whole cheeses were rolled down the streets; or the riot in the same city, in 1788, caused by the high price of meat, when the doors and shutters of the shambles were torn down and burned, together with the butcher's books, in the market-place. But even this violence shows a motive more complex than hunger: retailers were being punished, on account of their prices and the poor quality of the meat. More of the "mobs" showed self-discipline, within a customary pattern of behaviour. Perhaps the only occasion in his life when John Wesley commended a disorderly action was when he noted in his journal the actions of a mob in James' Town, Ireland; the mob--

"had been in motion all day; but their business was only with the forestallers of the market, who had bought up all the corn far and near, to starve the poor, and load a Dutch ship, which lay at the quay; but the mob brought it all out into the market, and sold it for the owners at the common price. And this they did with all calmness and composure imaginable, and without striking or hurting anyone" (64).

The Sheffield Society originated. . .from a gathering of "five or six mechanics. . .conversing about the enormous high price of provisions." It grew so rapidly that by January 1792, it comprised eight societies "which meet at their different houses, all on the same evening.". . .There were 1,400 subscribers for a pamphlet edition (at 6d.) of the First Part of Rights of Man, which was "read with avidity in many of the workshops of Sheffield. In March 1792, after four months in existence, the society claimed nearly 2,000 members (149).

[The purpose of the society was]: "To enlighten the people, to show the people the reason, the ground of their sufferings; when a man works hard for thirteen or fourteen hours of the day, the week through, and is not able to maintain his family; that is what I understood of it; to show the people the ground of this; why they were not able" (151).

"The usual mode of proceeding at these weekly meetings was this. The chairman (each man was chairman in rotation) read from some book . . . and the persons present were invited to make remarks thereon, as many as chose did so, but without rising. Then another portion was read and a second invitation given. Then the remainder was read and a third invitation was given when they who had not before spoken were expected to say something. Then there was a general discussion.

"The moral effects of the Society were very great indeed. It induced men to read books instead of spending their time at public houses. It taught them to think, to respect themselves, and to desire to educate their children. It elevated them in their own opinions" (154-155).

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Talk about community organizing! Fascinating read.
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