Eric Zorn and the Tribune deserve praise for his three-part series on U.S. labor history and how today’s workers have benefited from the development, whether or not they belong to any union. As Mr. Zorn said, working conditions taken for granted today “were paid for (in workingmen’s) blood.”
One wonders how today’s politically conservative blue-collar workers reconcile their conservatism with the necessary radicalism of their blue-collar grandfathers? Or when they’ll insist on confronting how those hard-won gains are being systematically eroded by those they send to Washington, who lull them by conspicuously waving the flag of patriotism while inconspicuously undermining workers’ rights, wages and protections? It’s all done under the rubric of “free markets” and “internationalization of the labor market.”
In short, the old adage remains true as ever: Ignore history at your peril.
