Happy Labor Day

Hey everyone!

It’s Labor Day and, though I didn’t plan to do this ahead of time, I decided to take some PTO today. I spent all weekend finishing up the final revisions to my book and that’s got me pretty spent. In light of that I decided that I needed Sunday afternoon and evening off rather than get the bulldog to press. Hope you understand.

I won’t leave you completely empty-handed, though. Here are a couple of items.

Oracle Park Strike

On Saturday, the union representing concessions workers at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, voted to strike after negotiations with the Giants’ food service contractor — a company called Bon Appétit — stalled. The union says workers have not received a pay increase since April 2018 and they are seeking $3 per hour in retroactive hazard pay. Safety measures are also at issue:

There’s no Labor Day in Baseball

I will leave you with my annual Labor Day rant. Which, hey, maybe it gets old for longtime readers — no one likes re-runs — but it’s still the sort of sentiment that not enough people have heard, so I’ll keep voicing it.

Have you seen the special jerseys and caps Major League Baseball has rolled out for today’s Labor Day games? The ones — like the traditional Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, and Fourth of July uniforms — that you can buy at the team store, the proceeds of which will go to help displaced and disabled workers?

Hahaha, of course you didn’t, because such uniforms don’t exist. Labor Day is the only in-season national holiday that gets no commemoration from Major League Baseball whatsoever. We don’t even get a statement from the Commissioner honoring labor, organized or otherwise, despite the fact that the past half century of baseball history is inextricably tied up with organized labor. And despite the fact that the league itself employs thousands of people, many of whom, like grounds crew, clubhouse staff, and concession workers like the ones I mentioned above at Oracle Park, who have to come in early, as nine of the twelve contests scheduled for today are day games, which is unusual for a Monday. Which shows that it’s not that Major League Baseball doesn’t know it’s Labor Day. They’re perfectly aware of how it lends itself to getting more people to watch games. They just don’t think it’s worth commemorating much beyond that.

This is not limited to Major League Baseball, of course. It’s a reflection of where we are as a society. The obliteration and demonization of the labor movement is one of the most successful political operations of the past 40 years. Organized labor makes up a smaller portion of the workforce than it ever has. Even a great many of the people who do the working in this country have bought in to the notion — propagated by those who profit from labor — that unions are tools of the communists and giving any lip service to the rights of workers is a suspect and even un-American pursuit. Good, secure jobs with good pay and benefits have come to be seen as rare luxuries for which it is rude to ask, let alone expect. What’s worse: many workers themselves have adopted the language of the rich and powerful in this regard, having been convinced that their need to hustle harder than they used to in order to make less in real dollars than they used to is somehow a good thing.

I’m not sure what to do about that, but even if the devaluation of labor is bound to continue, there is no reason why baseball cannot at least commemorate and acknowledge a national holiday devoted to laborers the way in which they acknowledge other holidays. Especially given that workers have died for our country. The roads, bridges, buildings, and mines, and services which have made this country what it is were paid for in part with workers’ lives and continue to be. Labor built this country. The labor movement has saved lives that would have been lost and has elevated the standard of living of families. But baseball has no plans to mark the occasion apart from scheduling some extra day games.

Maybe a special cap or jersey isn’t a big deal and maybe such symbolic gestures wouldn’t make a difference. But our values are revealed in both our substantive and our symbolic gestures. And it’s regrettable that the quintessentially American institution of baseball can’t find time to give even a nod to the men and women who form the figurative foundation of American society and built the literal foundation of America itself.

Have a great Labor Day, everyone.