Haymarket – Harper's Weekly, 5/15/1886
More than just a day off from work, labor day has a history of workers struggling against bloody violence as they worked for reasonable and decent working conditions.
One can easily do the research on the internet and learn much about the history of labor day in the United States.
Consistantly, the federal government and the various state governments have interceded with troops in labor disputes. Consistently, government has come into the battle on the side of the business world and against the workers (labor).
Clearly, to the eyes of government, there is nothing more 'criminal' that workers standing up and demanding a fair deal for their work.
Clearly, to the eyes of government, there is nothing more 'criminal' that workers standing up and demanding a fair deal for their work.
It is easy to believe that the only way workers make progress is to violate laws that are designed to 'keep them in their place' and to enrich the elite. Striking by workers leads to assault and arrest if not to death. Even with the industrial base having a 'security' force in place, the police and/or army troops join the 'security forces' against the workers leading to bashed skulls and bullet holes before any progress is made toward improved working conditions.
Much of the world celebrates 'labor day' in some form or another. "May Day" is the focus in much of the world, but due to the 'communist' connection, we in this country are attracted to the first Monday in September as an alternative.
Latoya Caldwell, 31, a Wendy's worker in Kansas City, Mo., sits beside a sign baring the face of Rosa Parks. She and 50 other fast workers blocked an intersection. Similar non violence civil disobedience actions played out in dozens cities around the country with thousands of fast workers getting arrested to call attention to their demand for pay hikes and a union. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NEWS
The bloody history of Labor Day
from The Week by Jeff Spross Most people probably don't think of Labor Day as a holiday commemorating struggle and death. But that's what it used to be. The period between the Civil War and the Great Depression was a time of massive upheaval: The industrial revolution swept in, and millions of Americans were forced to leave their farms and move to cities in search of work in the newly-formed rail, steel, textile, and shipping industries. Economic policymaking was still ad hoc and primitive. Massive recessions regularly created mass poverty and threw enormous numbers of people out of work. The rules, both legal and social, were still being formed for how employers could treat employees, and how the wealth they all collectively produced would be distributed. Inequality soared to enormous heights by the end of the period. The minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, laws against child labor, and more were only instituted after pitched political combat. Unions were growing as the one avenue by which workers could fight for their interests, and the economy saw waves of regular strikes and work stoppages that would be unheard of today. Sometimes, the battles were literal: Employers and politicians were not shy about busting unions with police forces and hired enforcers. Riots, deaths, and bombings were not uncommon. The first inklings of America's Labor Day took shape in 1882, when the Central Labor Union (CLU) met in September in New York City for a labor festival. It's disputed who first proposed the idea. It might have been Peter McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who was inspired by a parade in Toronto in 1872 in support of a strike against 58-hour work weeks. Other research points to Matthew Maguire, a machinist and member of the Knights of Labor. But somehow or another, the idea for a parade and yearly holiday to honor American workers was hatched. The first parade of the new project was held in Manhattan on Sept. 5, 1882. It started out small, but then a band showed up, and workers' groups from various industries began to flow in. Eventually the parade swelled to 10,000. After that initial success, various state and municipal governments began naming an official day to commemorate labor. Then a massive recession hit in 1893. The job losses were devastating — and the frustration crystallized in a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company, a railroad car manufacturer and founder of one of the most infamous company towns in America. Railroad baron George Pullman created his eponymous town in 1880 just outside Chicago. It was a model of capitalist feudalism, with workers offered housing in line with their position in the company. Residents worked for Pullman's company and their rent was automatically docked from their paychecks. They even banked at Pullman's bank. But Pullman's business plummeted when the recession hit. Hundreds were laid off and wages were deeply cut — yet rents in the town did not decline. In response, 4,000 of Pullman's workers went on strike on May 11, 1894. On June 26, the American Railroad Union — led by Eugene V. Debs — called for a supporting boycott. One hundred and fifty thousand railway workers in 27 states joined the strike, refusing to operate Pullman rail cars. The massive halt to the rail industry and the interruption of U.S. mail cars set off a national crisis. Congress and President Grover Cleveland, looking to save face, rushed through a bill declaring Labor Day a national holiday. Cleveland signed it on June 28, 1894. He was backed by the AFL — the more conservative portion of the labor movement — which threw the first official Labor Day parade that year. But it was a brutally ironic gesture. Six days later, under pressure from the furious leaders of the rail industry, and facing the virtual shutdown of U.S. mail trains, Cleveland invoked the Sherman Antitrust Act to declare the stoppage a federal crime. He sent in 12,000 federal troops to break the strike. Days of fighting and riots ensued, as strikers overturned and burned railcars, and the troops responded with violent crackdowns. Anywhere from a dozen to over 30 workers were killed before the strikers were dispersed and the trains restarted. Debs was sent to prison, where he read Marx for the first time, setting him on the path to becoming arguably America's most famous socialist. Cleveland and others picked the September date for Labor Day as a kind of alternative to May Day, which had by then arisen as the principal day of celebration for workers' movements around the world. On May 1, 1886, over 250,000 workers struck in Chicago, shutting down 13,000 businesses to demand a shorter work week for equal pay. After several days of peaceful protest, an unknown assailant threw a bomb at police in Haymarket Square on May 4. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing scores of people. So it's understandable that many on the left view Labor Day as a cynical ploy — a lazy apolitical three-day weekend, which distracts from the remembrance of when workers fought and died for the basic humane decency of a shorter work week. But you could also look at Labor Day as a remembrance of a time when the labor movement was a force to be reckoned with. Since the heyday of the New Deal, American membership in labor unions has collapsed. Millions of workers in modern service industries face capricious employment, low pay, and dismal conditions. Inequality has returned to its pre-Great-Depression levels, and the shared prosperity of the era immediately after the New Deal is a distant memory. Even the 40-hour work week is fallingby the wayside. All of which makes Labor Day ripe for reclaiming, in the name of some long-unfinished business. | 
Police in Kansas City handcuffed Latoya Caldwell, 31, and led her into a police van after she was arrested with dozens of other fast food workers who participated in civil disobedience. Caldwell arranged for a friend to pick up her four children from school in case she was held into the evening. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NEWS
Protesters Arrested Outside Times Square McDonald's
    
Americans fail to recognize the fact that they, all of them, are of the 'working class' and that 'labor' is them... each and every one of them. And yet, we can't seem to get it together in terms of 'self support' for our own causes. We delude ourselves into believing that our interests are best served by standing with management and against labor !!!
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Haymarket Riot-Harpers
KANSAS CITY, Mo.— Fast food workers walked off the job nationwide on Thursday, as police arrested dozens who engaged in civil disobedience.
Organizers said workers in an estimated 150 cities were expected to take part in the strike, which they said marked an intensification of their two-year campaign to raise hourly pay in the industry to $15 and to win workers’ right to form a union. Organizers said dozens of workers had been arrested in cities including Kansas City, Detroit, and New York.
In Kansas City, workers were expected to walk out of 60 restaurants, and more than 50 workers were arrested. Ten minutes after they sat down and linked arms in an intersection in front of a McDonald's, police arrived with vans and plastic cuffs and arrested the protesters one by one. They were joined by more than 100 other fast food workers, clergy members and other allies who stood on the sidewalk across the street and chanted "15 and a union," and sang spirituals.
Latoya Caldwell, a Wendy's worker, sat near the edge of the group in the street wearing a t-shirt that read "Stand Up KC" and beside a woman holding a sign bearing the face of Rosa Parks. Caldwell was arrested and loaded into a van.
“We’re a movement now,” Caldwell said on Wednesday before starting a shift at Wendy’s. She and several co-workers said that 25 of the more than 30 non-management employees in their restaurant have pledged to strike. “We know this is going to be a long fight, but we’re going to fight it till we win,” said Caldwell, 31, who is raising four children alone on $7.50 an hour and was living in a homeless shelter until earlier this year.
Police in Kansas City handcuffed Latoya Caldwell, 31, and led her into a police van after she was arrested with dozens of other fast food workers who participated in civil disobedience. Caldwell arranged for a friend to pick up her four children from school in case she was held into the evening. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NEWSThe strikers cite frustration about their continued struggle to survive at the bottom of the labor market even as the broader economic news seems positive. “They say the economy is getting better, but we’re still making $7.50,” said Caldwell. “Nobody should work 40 hours a week and find themselves homeless, without enough money to buy them and their kids food, needing public assistance.”
Most labor experts agree that the fast food worker walkouts are unlikely to yield raises or union rights in the immediate term. Yet the strikes, which began in 2012 in New York City and which reached Kansas City in July 2013, appear to have had some success in forcing lawmakers and the public to pay attention to the struggles of low wage workers. The actions are often credited with providing the narrative force behind a wave of minimum wage hikes in states and local governments from Seattle, which earlier this year raised its city minimum wage to $15 and Massachusetts, where the wage floor will soon increase to $11 an hour.
The fast food workers have captured the imagination of the nation,” says Mary Kay Henry, the International President of SEIU, one of the country’s largest unions, which has thrown its financial support behind the fast food workers. “People are outraged that these workers are earning $7.25.”
Many companies have argued that paying workers more could lead to lost jobs and higher prices.
In a statement, McDonald's said Thursday that it respected everyone's right to peacefully protest, and that any minimum wage increase should be implemented over time to manage the impact on small- and medium-sized businesses. The company also pointed out that about 90 percent of its U.S. restaurants are independently owned and operated by franchisees who set their own wages.
Even if fast food workers don’t see $15 an hour anytime soon, some say that as a result of their organizing, they’re logging other important workplace victories.
Caldwell and other workers tell stories about making collective complaints or staging actions to protest long-standing issues including verbal abuse by managers, unpaid wages, broken equipment, and unpredictable scheduling. They say that in some cases, their employers have listened.
“WE KNOW THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG FIGHT, BUT WE’RE GOING TO FIGHT IT TILL WE WIN.”
“There was no respect on the job here,” Caldwell says of the Wendy’s where she works. “Now that we’re standing up for each other, that has really started to change. We may not have a union yet, but we’re out here acting like we do.”
As Caldwell’s colleague Glenna Trammel puts it, “When it’s just one person complaining, they don’t pay any attention, they make you feel like a second class citizen. But when it’s all of us, they do.”
Trammel, 60, tells a story about a paycheck that she didn’t receive. For a month, she said, she asked for the check, but her managers didn’t produce it. With no money in the bank, she had to borrow several hundred dollars from a relative for rent and bus fare. When she ran out of money, and goodwill from her relative, Trammel talked to Caldwell and another of their coworkers who’d been part of previous fast food strikes. “They wrote a petition to the manager and read it out loud,” Trammell said. “Two days later I had my check and [the franchise company] sent me a formal apology letter.”
Glenna Trammel, 60, says that since the fast workers at her job started organizing to form a union, she feels supported when she has a complaint. “We have each others' backs,” she said. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NewsIn response to questions about the organizing, a Wendy’s spokesperson said, "We cannot speak to the situation in Kansas City, as we do not operate restaurants in that market.” Instead, the stores are operated by a franchise company, which did not respond to NBC’s request for comment.
Workers in other stores are seeing changes, too. Employees in Kansas City Popeye’s restaurants recently received a 50 cent raise and a free meal during every shift. Workers say the changes came after they made written demands to the company.
At a Burger King in Kansas City, workers complained about old uniforms, broken equipment and sometimes being expected to attend required training while off the clock. Some also claimed that immigrant workers were regularly treated with disrespect by their bosses.
Susana De La Cruz, 26, has worked at the Burger King for five years, since she immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. She says that one of the managers would verbally harass her. “I asked for help once because it was so busy,” said De La Cruz in Spanish, about an incident earlier this year. One of the store managers “told me not to complain and said ‘if you don’t like working at Burger King you should just leave and go back to Mexico.’”
One of De La Cruz’ coworkers, Terrence Wise, 35, who has become a leader of the Kansas City campaigns, led a petition drive demanding redress.
“We won all of these things,” said Wise, including new uniforms and fixed equipment. “And the manager apologized to Susie.”
“THEY SAY THE ECONOMY IS GETTING BETTER, BUT WE’RE STILL MAKING $7.50.”
Burger King said that it had no comment on the events in the Kansas City location because the stores are operated by franchise companies. The Burger King franchise company did not respond to NBC’s request for comment.
At Wise’s workplace and a number of the other 60 Kansas City stores expected to be involved in Thursday’s strikes, workers say they’ve have set up worker committees, ensuring that there’s at least one committee member on each shift to keep track of worker complaints, Wise said. “That’s how I heard about what happened to Susie,” he said.
The committees keep track of posted weekly schedules to make sure that workers are getting equitable hours, and the shift representatives check in with each other weekly.
“We are not waiting until we win this union to act like we have one,” Wise said. "We are building power on the ground in our jobs, store by store."
Latoya Caldwell, 31, walks her children to school at 7:30 a.m. before she spends an hour on the city bus to get to the Wendy’s where she works. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NewsOn Tuesday, Caldwell, Wise and Trammel gathered at local union office, and along with about 50 other workers who’d agreed to risk arrest, they sat through a training session by a local attorney on civil disobedience. They also listened to local clergy members, veteran United Auto Workers members and other fast food workers, on the importance of protest.
“I am doing this because I want to be able to work and take care of my children,” Caldwell said. “It’s a struggle everyday to pay bills, and food, and rent. I skip meals. It’s time we get paid for the work we do.”
Organizers said workers in an estimated 150 cities were expected to take part in the strike, which they said marked an intensification of their two-year campaign to raise hourly pay in the industry to $15 and to win workers’ right to form a union. Organizers said dozens of workers had been arrested in cities including Kansas City, Detroit, and New York.
In Kansas City, workers were expected to walk out of 60 restaurants, and more than 50 workers were arrested. Ten minutes after they sat down and linked arms in an intersection in front of a McDonald's, police arrived with vans and plastic cuffs and arrested the protesters one by one. They were joined by more than 100 other fast food workers, clergy members and other allies who stood on the sidewalk across the street and chanted "15 and a union," and sang spirituals.
Latoya Caldwell, a Wendy's worker, sat near the edge of the group in the street wearing a t-shirt that read "Stand Up KC" and beside a woman holding a sign bearing the face of Rosa Parks. Caldwell was arrested and loaded into a van.
“We’re a movement now,” Caldwell said on Wednesday before starting a shift at Wendy’s. She and several co-workers said that 25 of the more than 30 non-management employees in their restaurant have pledged to strike. “We know this is going to be a long fight, but we’re going to fight it till we win,” said Caldwell, 31, who is raising four children alone on $7.50 an hour and was living in a homeless shelter until earlier this year.
Police in Kansas City handcuffed Latoya Caldwell, 31, and led her into a police van after she was arrested with dozens of other fast food workers who participated in civil disobedience. Caldwell arranged for a friend to pick up her four children from school in case she was held into the evening. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NEWSThe strikers cite frustration about their continued struggle to survive at the bottom of the labor market even as the broader economic news seems positive. “They say the economy is getting better, but we’re still making $7.50,” said Caldwell. “Nobody should work 40 hours a week and find themselves homeless, without enough money to buy them and their kids food, needing public assistance.”
Most labor experts agree that the fast food worker walkouts are unlikely to yield raises or union rights in the immediate term. Yet the strikes, which began in 2012 in New York City and which reached Kansas City in July 2013, appear to have had some success in forcing lawmakers and the public to pay attention to the struggles of low wage workers. The actions are often credited with providing the narrative force behind a wave of minimum wage hikes in states and local governments from Seattle, which earlier this year raised its city minimum wage to $15 and Massachusetts, where the wage floor will soon increase to $11 an hour.
The fast food workers have captured the imagination of the nation,” says Mary Kay Henry, the International President of SEIU, one of the country’s largest unions, which has thrown its financial support behind the fast food workers. “People are outraged that these workers are earning $7.25.”
Many companies have argued that paying workers more could lead to lost jobs and higher prices.
In a statement, McDonald's said Thursday that it respected everyone's right to peacefully protest, and that any minimum wage increase should be implemented over time to manage the impact on small- and medium-sized businesses. The company also pointed out that about 90 percent of its U.S. restaurants are independently owned and operated by franchisees who set their own wages.
Even if fast food workers don’t see $15 an hour anytime soon, some say that as a result of their organizing, they’re logging other important workplace victories.
Caldwell and other workers tell stories about making collective complaints or staging actions to protest long-standing issues including verbal abuse by managers, unpaid wages, broken equipment, and unpredictable scheduling. They say that in some cases, their employers have listened.
“WE KNOW THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG FIGHT, BUT WE’RE GOING TO FIGHT IT TILL WE WIN.”
“There was no respect on the job here,” Caldwell says of the Wendy’s where she works. “Now that we’re standing up for each other, that has really started to change. We may not have a union yet, but we’re out here acting like we do.”
As Caldwell’s colleague Glenna Trammel puts it, “When it’s just one person complaining, they don’t pay any attention, they make you feel like a second class citizen. But when it’s all of us, they do.”
Trammel, 60, tells a story about a paycheck that she didn’t receive. For a month, she said, she asked for the check, but her managers didn’t produce it. With no money in the bank, she had to borrow several hundred dollars from a relative for rent and bus fare. When she ran out of money, and goodwill from her relative, Trammel talked to Caldwell and another of their coworkers who’d been part of previous fast food strikes. “They wrote a petition to the manager and read it out loud,” Trammell said. “Two days later I had my check and [the franchise company] sent me a formal apology letter.”
Glenna Trammel, 60, says that since the fast workers at her job started organizing to form a union, she feels supported when she has a complaint. “We have each others' backs,” she said. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NewsIn response to questions about the organizing, a Wendy’s spokesperson said, "We cannot speak to the situation in Kansas City, as we do not operate restaurants in that market.” Instead, the stores are operated by a franchise company, which did not respond to NBC’s request for comment.
Workers in other stores are seeing changes, too. Employees in Kansas City Popeye’s restaurants recently received a 50 cent raise and a free meal during every shift. Workers say the changes came after they made written demands to the company.
At a Burger King in Kansas City, workers complained about old uniforms, broken equipment and sometimes being expected to attend required training while off the clock. Some also claimed that immigrant workers were regularly treated with disrespect by their bosses.
Susana De La Cruz, 26, has worked at the Burger King for five years, since she immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. She says that one of the managers would verbally harass her. “I asked for help once because it was so busy,” said De La Cruz in Spanish, about an incident earlier this year. One of the store managers “told me not to complain and said ‘if you don’t like working at Burger King you should just leave and go back to Mexico.’”
One of De La Cruz’ coworkers, Terrence Wise, 35, who has become a leader of the Kansas City campaigns, led a petition drive demanding redress.
“We won all of these things,” said Wise, including new uniforms and fixed equipment. “And the manager apologized to Susie.”
“THEY SAY THE ECONOMY IS GETTING BETTER, BUT WE’RE STILL MAKING $7.50.”
Burger King said that it had no comment on the events in the Kansas City location because the stores are operated by franchise companies. The Burger King franchise company did not respond to NBC’s request for comment.
At Wise’s workplace and a number of the other 60 Kansas City stores expected to be involved in Thursday’s strikes, workers say they’ve have set up worker committees, ensuring that there’s at least one committee member on each shift to keep track of worker complaints, Wise said. “That’s how I heard about what happened to Susie,” he said.
The committees keep track of posted weekly schedules to make sure that workers are getting equitable hours, and the shift representatives check in with each other weekly.
“We are not waiting until we win this union to act like we have one,” Wise said. "We are building power on the ground in our jobs, store by store."
Latoya Caldwell, 31, walks her children to school at 7:30 a.m. before she spends an hour on the city bus to get to the Wendy’s where she works. Seth Freed Wessler / NBC NewsOn Tuesday, Caldwell, Wise and Trammel gathered at local union office, and along with about 50 other workers who’d agreed to risk arrest, they sat through a training session by a local attorney on civil disobedience. They also listened to local clergy members, veteran United Auto Workers members and other fast food workers, on the importance of protest.
“I am doing this because I want to be able to work and take care of my children,” Caldwell said. “It’s a struggle everyday to pay bills, and food, and rent. I skip meals. It’s time we get paid for the work we do.”
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