Commentary—

Put The Labor Back In Labor Day

By David Anderson

Labor Day weekend marks the passing of summer into fall. Held on the first Monday in September, the national holiday was meant to honor American workers. The US Department of Labor says when Labor Day was first proposed in the late 19th Century, organizers intended “a street parade to exhibit to the public the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.”

Recreation and amusement still play a major role in our Labor Day festivities. But much has changed since 1894, when Congress made Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

Our nation’s workforce is deunionized, disorganized, and defenseless. Business marginalizes organized labor from its own workers through persistent antiunion messages in film, radio, print, and television. Media images of “corrupt union bosses” and “big labor” remain remarkably effective in turning working people away from organizing and joining unions.

Television’s influence is the essential union-busting tool in business’s battle to win hearts and minds against labor. The “boob tube” enabled business to open doors and gain entry into American households in the 1950s and 60s. TV commercials cultivated consumers and pitched product better than “door-to-door” sales. TV remains unmatched in its capacity to package and sell.

Big business and not “big labor” owns and distributes TV news and entertainment programming. The amount of advertising dollars invested in commercials indicates the extent of television’s impact in shaping consumers’ buying habits. It also points to the power of big business to superimpose itself on many different types of televised imagery.

The Super Bowl is no longer just about televised football. It is an extravaganza paying homage to global corporations and their advertising dollars. Business uses the Super Bowl to unveil new commercials and to reach into the hearts and minds of millions of enthusiastic football fans. Televised football becomes more than a game when corporations can imprint their logos on equipment and pay players to mouth brand phrases.

When it comes to television news coverage, big business superimposes its message in more subtle ways. Commercial breaks repeatedly remind news viewers of corporate largess in providing life’s necessities. Cliché newscast phrases like “labor unrest” imply that organized workers are disruptive and counterproductive. Televised news makes it seem that raising the minimum wage and protecting American workers’ rights pose a threat to American consumers.

No amount of channel flipping through corporate-sponsored television will lower unemployment and job loss rates or restore the rights of working people to organize for better health care, higher wages, and job security. Maybe the time has come for wage earners to turn off their televisions, take to the streets, and march to the beat of a different drummer in a Labor Day parade!

(David Anderson is a former public radio news producer and reporter in Columbus, Ohio.)