Labor Day 2012

It’s Moonday and Labor Day and here is what’s on my mind:

13 Colonies of British North America and the Evolution of Labor!

The Royal land grants made to some of the wealthy families of England marked the beginning of the settlements in British North America. What became Virginia and the Carolinas was the fertile land used for growing tobacco and later on, cotton became king as the other 13 colonies were established via land grants from the King of England.

In order to grow crops for trade the wealthy land grant owners needed labor. The first source of labor was the criminals and other misfits in England who were given a sentence of “transportation” to the colonies as forced labor. When they finished their sentences they received land and tools to grow food and crops on their own. Labor shortage was a constant problem for the wealthy land grant owners. They tried contract labor, the indentured servants system. English poor people would sign contracts to work for a certain number of years and at the end of the term they would be provided land and tools to start their own crops and make a home.

Labor shortages remained a serious problem. The Native Americans were not dependable as workers and not strong enough to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Cheap labor was hard to find but when the word about the wealth being made by those using the slave trade in the British, French, and Spanish Caribbean, the cheap solution for labor was discovered.

The British, Portuguese, French and Spanish slave traders were running a booming business off the coast of West Africa. They traded with the African Kings who had slaves to sell that were captured during wars with other African tribes. The Arabs were running a slave trading market to the Middle East from the mainland of Africa.

Long after the British outlawed slavery, the British North American Colonies were wading into slave market with vigor. The initial 6,000 slaves brought to America became a population of over 4 million in a few decades. These black slaves became the back bone for labor in the colonies and help produce a vibrate economy that made the wealthy land owners filthy rich.

Not all the colonies were involved in the slave trade but those who were out of guilt had to develop an elaborate mythology to relieve them of guilt for what they were doing to their fellow human being.

They used the King James Bible to vilify their color as being inferior because of the acts of Ham in the Noah story of drunkenness and nudity. He cursed Ham for laughing at his nakedness and made his descendants the slaves of the other tribes. Ham was apparently one of his darker sons. The color became a symbol of inferiority and his descendants would be forever cursed. The white superiority vs. black inferiority paradigm was invented and racism was born in America based on this biblical tale.

Slave labor became an abomination for those in the Northern part of America and the Civil War broke out after the South refuse to end slave labor and withdrew from the Union. Even before this juncture in American history, some of these slaves had fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 on the British and the Colonies side. They fought in the Spanish American War, the Indian Wars, World War I, World War II, Korean Police Action, Vietnam, and every America war thereafter. The right to be treated as a citizen was granted after the Civil War in the 14^th Amendment, but that right was not seriously protected until the beginning of the 1960’s.

The Master and Servant relationship in the labor market has evolved into an extremely sophisticated system today after years of bloodshed and suffering between 1865 and the late 1900s. The invention of labor unions, labor laws (employment law), and the civil rights act of 1964, America has been able to maintain labor peace in the master and servant paradigm needed to produce goods and services.

With new global paradigm evolving today, cheap labor needs are being redefined around the world and America labor is feeling the new reality.

Congress set aside a special day to celebrate labor in America starting in 1894; though in some States the unions started the celebrations in 1882.

So, here we are, Labor Day, 2012. I have carried two labor union cards during my younger days, The International Brotherhood Electrical Workers (IBEW) (Broadcast Engineer) and The United Transportation Union (UTA) (school bus driver). The importance of the labor movement and it’s creation of the middle class is not forgotten.

I celebrate my father today. My father retired after being one of the first blacks in Bakersfield, California allowed in the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO) union in the late 1950s. During that time he brought our dirt poor family into a higher standard of living. I stand on his shoulders today. I love and honor you Dad! (1913-1983).

Peace.