Happy Labor Day! It has been a long, hot, dry, smokey summer with plenty of natural disasters and of course a raging pandemic.
I have used most of these pictures before to commemorate Labor Day. You will notice that almost all of the workers are white. Last year I added a new picture of a hat factory that was partitioned off so that black women could work there.
Most of the jobs in the pictures don’t exist anymore. I suspect many of the workers were paid better than workers are paid today.
Working conditions for many have improved over the last 100 years or mainly because of technology. It was once thought that technology would replace workers and it has but no one ever expected technology to be in charge of so many workers. I am thinking of those who work in full-filament warehouses, large discount chains, and call centers.
Some jobs are broken down into pieces so that each individual worker does part of a job, over and over. There are many jobs that don’t pay well enough so that the worker can afford life’s necessities like housing, medical care, and healthy food.
I am not at all surprised that there are so many job openings right now. I am mystified as to why anyone would blame the workers rather than the employers for labor shortages.
Our brand of predatory capitalism is part of the reason why so many workers can’t have nice things but their bosses and the people who own the companies can.
The photos came from Flickr commons where there is a treasure trove of old photographs.
