We know intuitively there is a natural strength and security in numbers. We unify to fight fires; for a neighborhood watch; to pick up trash along the highway; the PTA; for political affiliations; to defend our shores; to get things done.
Union membership in the U.S. is currently at an historic low. This isn't because people don't wish to belong to unions, although some pretend it's the reason. If people are given a straight-up choice in the matter, free of interference, they unionize in droves, as they did in the the early mid-20th century. Americans generally, prefer to unify at work, for better wages and working conditions.
At the same time that union membership has fallen, income disparity in the U.S., between the ultra-wealthy and most everyone else, has risen to unprecedented levels. This is not a coincidence. The last time income disparity was this great, was also a time of low union membership. That span of time was in the industrial age, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
As uncomfortable as it is to consider, it's now undeniable that there is an economic ruling class in America today. And they hold disproportionate influence over the government under which we all live. The ultra-wealthy and the corporations they control have long (and correctly) seen a unified workforce as a threat to their bottom line. They understand (better than most wage-earners) that a workforce united cannot be defeated. They know when a workforce stands in unity, it can seldom be buffaloed or bamboozled.
This is inconvenient for the ultra-wealthy, and it gets in the way of their accumulation of ever greater wealth. A united workforce is a threat -- not to their existence, but certainly to their soaring levels of wealth and influence. And so they seek to divide and disunite the American workforce, by whatever means available.
In a prior time of enormous disparity, the industrial age, there were several methods of thwarting workforce unity. Among these was political influence, enacting laws to outlaw unions. Laws were passed (and enforced) to make union organizing illegal. People were imprisoned and executed in the U.S. for union activity. Troops and militias were sent to put down organizing efforts. Here in our own country, troops rounded up and executed union organizers and members, fired on and killed men, women and children. Burned them alive, in their homes.
Many gains toward unity made by the American workforce were in the face of such naked and brutal aggression. One event was the Haymarket Square incident in Chicago in 1886. In what started as a peaceful demonstration in support of an 8-hour workday (and to protest several organizers being killed by police the day prior), the police were on hand and things became highly contentious. Someone (it isn't known who) threw a bomb. The police opened fire, and when it was over, 11 people were dead and scores wounded.
On flimsy evidence, eight demonstrators were tried and (wrongly) convicted on trumped-up charges. While none of them threw the bomb, one was sentenced to 15 years, and the other seven were sentenced to death. In this travesty of justice, four were hanged, and a fifth committed suicide, before the governor of Illinois commuted sentences to life in prison for the remaining two.
Commemoration of this event came to be known as May Day. The tragic event, the wrongful imprisonment and the deaths of these Americans, is commemorated in most every country in the free world. But not in the U.S., where they lived and died. Here in their own nation, we've been misled to believe that May Day is a communist and socialist event, and we thus envision tanks and goose-stepping troops parading through Red Square.
This is no accident. The ultra-wealthy mentioned above can no longer have union members brazenly murdered in the open light of day. So instead, they do their very best to convince Americans that uniting together on their own behalf in the workplace is wrong.
On the one hand, we know that Americans unifying together is good and right. There's undeniable strength in our unity. But we're to believe that doing so at work is somehow un-American?
More now than ever, legislation is written making it increasingly difficult for the workforce to unite. When we're told that "a rising tide lifts all boats"... it doesn't really mean everyone. Those who exert influence in these matters work to see that Americans at large are on a short anchor-chain, even as their own tide rises.
The same people who bemoan "government overreach," who always claim to want the government out of our lives, are eager for the government to step into our lives when it's to their own benefit. The "prosperity" they speak of is meant mostly for them, and not really for the rest of Americans.
The American people today are facing economic oppression much as they did 130 years ago. Everything done in this matter is in pursuit of one objective: to divide the American workforce, in order to conquer it. This is done today, for many of the same reasons it was done then, mainly to inhibit workforce unity. When performed successfully, it produces the same effect now, which it did then: A failure to keep pace, economically, while those in the highest brackets, reap stratospherically disproportionate incomes.
There is a never-ending, and very real economic conflict in our country, between the supremely wealthy (and their corporations), and the mass of people; the former on relentless offense, and the latter on defense. There's only one way for the American people to counter such an economic offensive: and that's to unify. It was true for the founders of this great nation 240 years ago, and it remains true for us today: Liberty is won, first by our joining together. Just as those who came before us, had to assert themselves, to gain liberation from different forms of oppression, so too must Americans today, and always.
Please join with your fellow Alaskans at 7 p.m. Friday at the Wilda Marston Theater in the Loussac Library as they commemorate the Haymarket Square affair. This event honors those who stood up for a cause and died for it. The rest of the free world honors these Americans. Shouldn't we?
Peter Blanas is a lifelong Alaskan who, with his wife, Kim, lives and works in Anchorage. He is a longtime observer of Alaska politics and is registered nonpartisan.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.