Robert Reich wonders What Happened to Labor Day? as the modern labor movement is a modern anachronism at best and at worst, considered a nuisance and obstruction:
But don’t blame Ronald Reagan or corporate greed. Blame us – you and me. You see, starting about 30 years ago and with increasing efficiency, technologies have given us consumers a world of choice – low priced goods and services that often depend on low wages here and elsewhere.
Four-lane federal highways and long-haul trucks linking non-unionized manufacturers in the South to the rest of us. Container ships and cargo planes linking us to foreign producers. Big-box retailers using computers to find the best deals anywhere around the world. And now the Internet letting us find the best deals for ourselves from anywhere, too.
In other words, we as a nation have traded off lower priced goods and services, in place of a unionized workforce with the bargaining clout to get higher wages. So now, a lot of us get good consumer deals and lousy paychecks.
No one trumpeted this choice. It’s happened gradually. But is it the right choice? That’s what we ought to be asking ourselves — at least once a year, on Labor Day.
I can’t conceive of the idea that no one has factored this into their shopping decisions. It’s all every well to say domestic garment workers deserve a living wage but at the same time who will pay the prices their products would bear? When we see how many items we used to produce here that are now imported from across the Pacific, one can look at it dispassionately as a triumph of the modern economy. But tell that to domestic growers or manufacturers who can no longer count on domestic markets for their products.
And the answer is not a blanket “don’t buy imported goods.” Nor is it a demand that we support inefficient or underperforming domestic manufacturers.
But as with the foods we eat, we should understand how and where things are made and how those decisions affect us. I can’t quite understand how canned black beans can cost less if they are made in China than if they are made here in the US.