Rioting Across America - The Great Depression (video)

[AtomicEraTom]

I know you don't get paid more for working harder, but that's not the point. Anything worth doing is worth doing right and doing to the fullest extent of your ability.

Actually, you often don't!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Anything worth doing ...

Yes. But does anything worth doing that's done more than right --that's done excellently well-- deserve greater $$$ compensation?

 

[AtomicEraTom]

In a perfect world, but this is the real world and sadly it don't work that way. You just gotta hope that your hard work and dedication gets noticed and you move up a rung on the ladder. I've been told there may be a supervisor's position for me down the road.

Yes. But does anything worth doing that's done more than right --that's done excellently well-- deserve greater $$$ compensation?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

In a perfect world, but this is the real world and sadly it don't work that way.

The real world is about not being satisfied with the status quo. Change is possible. Hell, it's necessary. Anthony Quinn once said that the word he most despised is "can't".

 

[LizzieMaine]

Change doesn't happen until people are willing to do more than talk.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Change doesn't happen until people are willing to do more than talk.

Yes ... and be willing and ready to do more than hope you'll get noticed by the boss.

 

[Tomasso]

I recall when the printers union struck the Chicago Tribune in the 80s. The Trib had installed high tech presses which required less printers to operate. The Trib planned to reassign the unneeded printers to other areas with no loss of pay, pension or seniority. These printers had already been guaranteed lifetime jobs in a previous contract negotiation. Never could figure that one out.

 

[Story]

Change doesn't happen until people are willing to do more than talk.

Depending on which sort of people act, you might not like the results.

 

[SGT Rocket]

They didn't worry too much about OSHA. Here's an example of why.

Another woman and I worked on an eight-head automatic screen press for printing t-shirts that were sold to a major catalog retailer - I won't mention the name, but it's one of the biggest, most upscale in the business. This press had to be set up and calibrated by hand -- you'd stand on a step stool, lean over the top of the machine, and adjust the calibration knobs that held the screen frame in place until everything was in register. The back of the machine had activation buttons on it for manual operation, and these were supposed to be protected by a guard cover to prevent tripping them accidentally. But fiddling with those covers took time, and the foreman had removed them, because Time Is Money.

My fellow worker on the machine was leaning over it, setting it up, and her knee tripped the activation button -- causing the printing squeegee to jerk forward under high pressure, pinning one of her breasts between the edge of the squeegee and the screen frame. I threw the release as soon as I heard her scream and got her out, and it turned out she was rather seriously injured -- the injury became abscessed and she nearly lost the breast.

She was told "don't say anything about this to anyone or you'll lose your job. Don't file a worker's comp report or try to make trouble. And they gave her a couple of hundred dollars "toward expenses."

Most of the women working there were poor, as I myself was at the time, and unemployment in our area was around 15 percent at the time. Jobs were not easy to get, and people were willing to put up with a lot to keep one. So she didn't say anything.

Neither did I, because she wasn't even supposed to tell me, and if I blew the whistle, she'd get fired as well as me, and she had substantially less prospects to find another job than I did -- as well as having two kids to support.

So they got away with it. If we'd had a union to fight for us they wouldn't have.

This was in 1987. Not 1897. In 1987 OSHA was a toothless beast and if an inspector ever set foot in that plant, I never saw him.

Holy cow! That is horrible.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Depending on which sort of people act, you might not like the results.

Story, what you say above is very true.

 

[JimWagner]

The motivations for the union actvities of the 30's seem clear. For the life of me I cannot comprehend the motivations of the "occupy whatever" crowd. They seem completely diffuse and unfocused on anything beyond slogans that actually don't mean anything.

 

[Feraud]

Hindsight is 20/20 vision. How many of us living in the 30s would have associated with those "rabble rousing Socialists"?

The Occupy Wall Street crowd is protesting continued corporate greed and malfeasance. That is something anyone can understand.
As usual the media is doing it's humble part to cloud the message so the images look vague, unfocused, and downright silly.

The protests are the same, only the clothes have changed.

 

[Edward]

What's the context here? Who is the guy being hanged in effigy? Does the star indicate he is a lawman, or something else?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

For the life of me I cannot comprehend the motivations of the "occupy whatever" crowd. They seem completely diffuse and unfocused on anything beyond slogans that actually don't mean anything.

Essentially, it's this. No more and no less. Even if you've heard it before, listen closely ... again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMBZDwf9dok


Howard Beale:

"... I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first, you've got to get mad. You've gotta say, 'I'm a human being, g**dammit! My life has value!'"

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't think there's any protest movement today -- or any movement in the last forty years that can honestly compare to the labor movement in the thirties, in terms of its goals and its overall scope, and the only movement in any era that can parallel it is the Civil Rights movement -- and, in fact, you can draw a direct line connecting those two movements thru the person of A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the most important Civil Rights leader of the Era and the most significant African-American labor leader of all time. Many of the tactics used by civil rights marchers in the fifties and sixties -- civil disobedience, the use of sit-down strike techniques, etc. -- came directly out of labor's 1930s playbook. Without that movement in the 1930s, the Civil Rights movement as we know it would likely not have happened. In other words, it wasn't just about carrying signs.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What's the context here? Who is the guy being hanged in effigy? Does the star indicate he is a lawman, or something else?

This scene occured during the sit-down strikes at Chrysler, where workers seized and occupied all six Chrysler plants, refusing to leave until the UAW was recognized. The badge-wearing effigy represents a legal injunction obtained by the company requiring the strikers to vacate company property, and the workers are showing their determination to hold their ground. The other effigy, labeled "Fence Jumper," represents what will happen to any striker who deserts his fellow workers and abandons the strike.

The workers held the plants for seventeen days, and Chrysler finally agreed to negotiate with the UAW -- the first of the Big Three automakers to recognize the union.

 

[Saint-Just]

I don't think there's any protest movement today -- or any movement in the last forty years that can honestly compare to the labor movement in the thirties, in terms of its goals and its overall scope

I will not agree with you on this point until we see how the current protest develops. At the moment reporting has been dire, but they are getting better at putting their point across. It is also quite international, with London protesters camping around St Paul's cathedral and Spanish protesters very vocal and organised too...

Other than that I would like to thank you for many an insightful post on this thread

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the real difference, aside from basic goals, is that the thirties labor movement had something management needed -- labor itself -- and by withholding this thru strikes, they were able to force management to negotiate. And, to be blunt, there was also the ever-present threat of physical violence. Management looked into those faces such as you see in the picture, and realized that just maybe it might not be effigies dangling from lightpoles next time. People were *that desperate* in 1937, and were willing to fight for their goals By Any Means Necessary.

We haven't reached that point in 2011. Yet.

 

[Rick Blaine]

One Big Union

I think the thing was, people then were willing to put their blood on the line for what they were fighting for. They wouldn't have been satisfied to post comments on blogs or dress up in silly costumes holding up signs. They knew what they were fighting for -- and what they had to do to accomplish it.

The labor riots were especially rough -- both sides played for keeps, and people died in the process. It's an unjustly forgotten chapter in our history -- every time you enjoy an eight hour day or a forty hour week, you should think about what had to be done to achieve it.

Ford was the last to recognize UAW. This pin was a money raiser from other UAW workers in the now newly Unionized auto industry to help defray the cost of the strike.

Remember Haymarket, Triangle Shirtwaist & Homestead!

In solidarity!

 

[Story]

The protests are the same, only the clothes have changed.

Neither has the threat of mob rule and 'unintended consequences'.