American Minute with Bill FedererLABOR DAY |
LABOR DAYTo appreciate it, one needs to know the history preceding it.
At the time the United States was founded, most people were farmer or worked in trades, such as blacksmiths, cobblers, bakers, upholsterers, etc. Then the Industrial Revolution occurred in the early 19th century with the harnessing of water and steam power. This led to the creation of factories which could mass produce items inexpensively. In America, most factories were in the Northern States. As there originally was no Federal Income tax, the Federal Government was financed primarily from:
TARIFF TAXES on imports, making them more expensive so people would buy goods made in American factories. The problem was the Tariff Taxes that helped the North hurt the South, as the South had no factories to protect.
After the Civil War, the North passed more Tariff Taxes which successfully allowed factories to grow enormous.
Get the book, The Interesting History of Income Tax
George Pullman saw that workers needed a place to live, so he built them houses in a safe little village around the factory, deducting the rent from their paychecks.
It was thought to be a utopian workers’ community and worked well for over a decade.
There was a nationwide economic depression and orders for railroad sleeping cars declined. In 1893, George Pullman had to make cuts in wages and lay off hundreds of employees, though rent and groceries stayed the same price.
The growing discontent was a seedbed for Karl Marx’s theory of class-struggle and the communist redistribution of wealth.
Railroad workers across the nation boycotted trains carrying Pullman cars.
It became a national issue when mail trains were interrupted.
More violence erupted, and two men were killed.
He chose THE FIRST MONDAY IN SEPTEMBER.
He also did not want LABOR DAY to be May 1st as this was the anniversary of the bloody Chicago’s Haymarket Riot, where rioters blew up a pipe bomb on May 1, 1886, killing 7 policemen and injured 60 others.
The statue dedicated to the police who died in the 1886 Haymarket Riot was blown up by on October 6, 1969, by Bill Ayers’ militant leftist group “Weatherman Underground” during their Days of Rage.
With these unprecedented improvements in working conditions came an unintended consequence, namely “out-sourcing.” After World War II, America helped rebuild Germany and Japan with newer factories. These overseas factories, together with their cheaper labor, allowed companies based overseas to produce items for less, whereas in America, costs increased with:
Companies not supporting those politicians or parties were left at a financial disadvantage and had to go out of business or out of the country.
Squeeze the sponge and the water goes out.
Bringing jobs back is as simply as allowing it to be more profitable for factories to be located here than there.
But building the political will is difficult. Global companies funnel large amounts of money into lobbying to keep tariffs low. Political agendas include raise corporate taxes, raise wages, and impose burdensome regulations.
Instead of addressing the need to make it more economically advantageous for business to bring their jobs back to America, many unions have focused their efforts on simply increasing their membership by recruiting from other occupations, such as government, education, service and retail. Addressing the American worker, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who had spent 11 years in Communist labor camps, warned on June 30, 1975: “I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust…and prevent those…because of short-sightedness and still others out of self-interest, from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road. Because they are trying to weaken you; they are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat… I call upon you: ordinary working men of America…do not let yourselves become weak.” For God’s Glory Alone Ministries thanks Bill Federer and www.AmericanMinute.com
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