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Barry Crimmins

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Quips & Comments May 1, 2002   May Day! Wednesday, May 1, 2002

by Barry Crimmins

http:www.barrycrimmins.com

Just a few thoughts on this day for workers....

Considering massive job cuts and how much more difficult their work has become, the term "May Day" is now doubly important to airline employees.

Many more American workers are killed each year on, or because of, their jobs than were lost on 9-11 (although you could certainly argue that airlines failing to staff security gates with well-trained, well-paid professionals resulted in those deaths as well) So if the Court-appointed Bush Administration really wants to make our homeland more secure, why does it work assiduously with corporate interests to diminish government oversight of workplace safety?

And if this country really wants to honor New York firefighters, why not begin by paying FDNY rookies enough so that they are no longer eligible for food stamps?

May Day is the international workers holiday and thanks to conscience-free trade initiatives that's where a lot of domestic workers jobs have been sent.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for jobs for everyone at home and abroad. What I'm against is union jobs leaving one place and turning up in another -- more dangerous, more difficult and less profitable for the workers. All that free trade means is that corporate bosses have learned how to say "replacement" in several languages. It all sounds like "scab" to me.

The aberration of Reagan Democrats can be traced to American labor unions wrapping themselves in the flag. In doing so, they promoted the nationalism and xenophobia that was central to Reagan's message. We need to get back to "workers of the world unite" and forget "buy American." If it's clear that a product was made by fairly compensated and properly respected labor, then I don't care where it was made.

One way to do this is to shop anywhere but flag-waving Walmart, the evil corporation that has gutted America's small towns and cities. All that's left in much of America are Walmarts and prisons, and it takes a fine eye to discern the difference.Let's face it, there is almost no product you can buy that was made in the USA by workers who get May Day, the international workers holiday, off.

Rather than frolic round the May Pole, American workers assume the position and brace for its introduction. If Americans would just reunite with the workers of the world, we'd get the true Labor Day off. The corporate bosses are too greedy to realize that the long-term health of any business depends on long-term markets. A world full of fairly-compensated people (this means a living wage, health care, paid vacations and good retirement plans) who spend their working lives laboring under just conditions, will provide many more long-term customers than our current arrangement. On May Day 2002, corporations care much more about the value of stock certificates than the people who make those certificates worth something -- workers. This is not only morally abhorrent, it is also slow economic suicide. It's up to workers to unite and teach management this essential lesson.

The stock market seems to me nothing more than a measure of how easy it is to screw workers. How often do you hear that this stock or that stock surged because several thousand employees got laid off? We have to stop looking at those numbers and celebrating. If the only way a company can improve is to put its workforce out on the street, I don't want to profit from its bloody stock.

Workers who pull together can find much more reliable security than can be offered by any brokerage. They can demand that workplaces everywhere are safe, equitable and worth the investment employees make in them. To do this we have to rise above the bosses demands that we treat our fellow workers as adversaries and competitors. We must look upon our fellow workers as allies with whom we cooperate. If we do this, we will finally step off the hamster wheel of paranoia and spend much more of our time actually being productive. Of course some jobs will never be improved but the more that are reformed, the more that will be. And the more workplaces that are improved, the more escape routes for workers at still-backward jobs.

I know this is an idealistic vision, but that's what May Day is for. It's time the United States celebrated May Day -- especially since it began as a result American workers' blood being shed in Chicago. Why, at a time when we glorify all things American to the point of absurdity, should we not celebrate the one holiday the USA has given to the world? Be a true patriot, celebrate this special day.

To my fellow workers at home and around the world, Happy May Day!And with that, I'm taking the rest of the day off.

© 2002 Barry Crimmins