With 1 in 5 people not working and collecting unemployment benefits and who knows how many other Americans working for less pay than before, Labor Day 2011 should be called Unemployment Day.
Labor Day is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It was appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership -- the American worker.
But we have lost our way. The American worker has been betrayed. We have been betrayed by our government leaders who allowed corporations to escape from paying taxes and outsourcing our jobs to other countries that are the home to world famous cheap labor and sweat shops while they enriched themselves on corruption payments from the corporate moguls.
We have been betrayed by the union leadership. Labor unions have not sustained labor but rather have destroyed it. Unions, labor bosses and negotiators bargained themselves out of jobs through decades of forcing unrealistic and unsustainable wages and benefits on businesses.
The purpose of a business is to make money. In order to make money, businesses need smart, hard-working, competition-driven employees. Businesses compensate the best employees and need to be able to get rid of employees who do not produce. Labor unions work to destroy that time-tested model. Labor unions have destroyed the auto industry in America. It's destroyed other jobs in its pursuit of big money that made us uncompetitive in the world marketplace. And as such drove the economy into the ruin that faces us today.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been very vocal about the union parasites in his state. In a speech earlier this year he told how each and every teacher is required to pay $730 per year in mandatory dues to the union. And if teachers want to opt out of the union, that is fine, but they still have to pay $620 per year to the union just for the privilege of opting out. The New Jersey teachers union alone collects around $130 million per year in mandatory dues. According to Christie, it is blood money used to coerce and blackmail politicians into supporting union initiatives.
In short the American worker has been betrayed. Happy Unemployment Day 2011.
