Unhappy Labor Day in the U.S.

Against the rest of the world, the United States celebrated Labor Day, the first Monday in September. It has always been a day of rest, picnics, fireworks and reconciliation of employers and employees, played out as a rosy episode of the soap opera that is the American Dream. On this day no demands are made, no rights proclaimed, and no demonstrations, strikes or protests take place on the street.

This year, Labor Day was more difficult to celebrate now that certain truths have come to light. To commemorate this day, President Barack Obama went to Detroit to deliver a speech of promises. Detroit, the city that was once the symbol of North American prosperity, productivity and the work headquarters of the automobile industry, now reflects the truth of this country with 14 percent official unemployment — 5 points above the national average. However, the real unemployment figure lies closer to 50 percent, and according to the website Common Dreams, the States now have “more people living in poverty than trucks on the road.”

Last Friday came another chilling announcement: In August, no single new job was created. In response to this information, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis assured CBS television that the president’s speech on Thursday — in front of a Republican-majority Congress that just returned from summer vacation — will rebuild the American public’s confidence. Proposed measures will include tax credits to companies that hire new workers or provide job training to the chronically unemployed, as well as an extension of tax cuts to unemployment salaries and benefits. The White House described the actions as more than “temporary tricks.”

However, unionized workers — certainly few in the states — are disappointed in the administration that they voted for with the belief that they would see a revival in union strength and a positive response to the crisis that has challenged the existence of their very being. According to the Detroit Free Press newspaper, public employee unions are fighting for their survival in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states where the government and Republican legislators have curtailed their rights and cut back agreements.

The economic decline is unimaginable, and the unions hold little hope that the situation will get better with a four-year prolongation of the Democratic administration — an administration that arrived in the White House with unemployment at 7.8 percent.

The Detroit Free Press announced that Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO (the only — however, currently weakened — central American union) said the AFL-CIO’s new strategy will be to construct an independent voice separate from the Democratic Party. If this happens, it will seriously jeopardize the chance of a Democratic candidate to be elected in the upcoming race.

Even a dozen unions have said that they will boycott the National Democratic Convention that will take place in Charlotte, N.C., to express their frustration about the economic situation in the United States — where the official count of unemployment is 14 million workers. But we know that these statistics are manipulated to hide the real image. Moreover, 6 million of the unemployed (42.9 percent of the total) have been continuously without work for more than six months.

Let us continue with the numbers. The 9.1 percent unemployment rate recognized in August is way above the average unemployment figure reported between 1948 and 2010 of 5.7 percent. Zero growth in August can only be compared historically to February 1945. Worst of all, the nervous U.S. economy is about to fall into another recession if the employment stays stagnant and salaries decrease. These factors, in addition to decreased consumption, are responsible for the low 0.7 percent economic growth in the first six months of 2011.

On Monday, Sept. 5, 2011, can the U.S. really say, “Happy Labor Day”?