It’s Labor Day.
Remember who’s disemboweling our generation and exploiting our labor for record corporate profit. Without single payer health care, our lives and deaths are shackled to our jobs, making moving or starting your own business far riskier than it should be. Without proper taxation of heiresses and the wealthy, our schools and universities crumble without funding, even as employers demand that we fund our own education and training while dodging their taxes at every turn.
The past generations fought and died for child labor laws, weekends, overtime pay, and better work conditions. In their day, the company provided for the welfare and training of the worker. Our generation’s bargain is fundamentally different. The corporation was slowly replaced by the government as society’s safety net, but these days the government’s been replaced with nothing. Companies shouldn’t have to provide healthcare, education, and training–our taxes should. We rely on our jobs or these “benefits” but for our generation they shrink and dwindle.
Our generation’s workers are constantly precarious, shackled to student loan debt brought on by the total evisceration of our public universities. We are left scrambling for whatever unpaid internships and jobs that are left as middle-class jobs are hollowed out. Productivity soars as wages stagnate.
Union-busting wage-depressing job-outsourcing tax-avoiding American looters are squeezing all they can out of us while they get rich. Who’s holding up our end of the bargain? Are you going to do something about it once your barbecue’s done? Our generation’s labor challenge: to restore society’s promise of opportunity. That takes a redefining of government’s role to provide a strong foundation for our generation to launch businesses, change jobs, and start families without fear of death or poverty.