Gratitude: Organized Labor's Successes

Today, I am grateful for:

The American labor movement.

I note the excesses, the corruption of the 1970s, the ill-conceived "rights" and all the arguments the right uses to bust unions. The simple truth, however, is that the labor movement gave this nation the most successful and prolonged period of "normalcy" in our history. It gave us a big middle class that could actually afford cars, homes, education and the like.

Since Ronald Reagan did a major union bust, however, the movement has shrunk, along with the middle class, which is disappearing along with American prosperity.

When the middle class is small, everybody suffers and we're seeing that now. We could solve a lot of problems if we would organize labor and return it to the standing it had in the 1950s, when the country's economy was solid and its people had great hope for the future.

Happy Labor Day.