Screen Actors Guild

Labor Day, Honoring Workers, Totally Ignored By Donald Trump

Yesterday was Labor Day, which has been a federal holiday since 1894.

It honors the work, sacrifices, and contributions of American workers.

However, labor unions have been in rapid decline since the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, ironically himself the only President to be a labor union leader, as head of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1940s and early 1950s.

If it was not for workers in all fields of industry and business, plus public government workers, America would not have accomplished its economic greatness over the generations.

And yet, not one word from President Donald Trump, who has spent his life exploiting workers in his real estate businesses, and often not paying contractors or workers the pay they are due, and avoiding it in court cases.

Labor Unions have brought about the following (no special order):

Weekends off for most workers

Paid Vacations

Paid Sick Leave

Family and Medical Leave

Child Labor Laws

Social Security

Minimum Wage

8 Hour Work Day

Overtime Pay

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Health Care, Dental, and Vision Coverage

Collective Bargaining Rights

Work Breaks

Wrongful Termination Laws

Age Discrimination Laws

Raises in Wages

Sexual Harassment Laws

Americans With Disabilities Act

Holiday Pay

Military Leave

Equal Pay Act

Workers Compensation

Civil Rights Laws

Federal Holidays Off

Sadly, less than ten percent of all workers now have the benefits of being members of a labor union, while in the 1960s and 1970s, one out of three workers were labor union members. The Northeast and the Pacific Coast are the areas of most labor unions that are doing well, while so called “right to work” laws keep workers in the South and much of the center of the nation relatively poor by comparison, as we have a new “Gilded Age” of business running rampant over workers, reminding us of the late 19th century.

Ronald Reagan: The Unvarnished Truth! Myth Versus Reality!

Ronald Reagan is treated as a saint by the conservative movement and the Republican Party, as a man and a President who could do no wrong, but the truth is otherwise.

Of course, no President and no human being is perfect, and all commit mistakes or show lack of sensitivity, but the point is that the 40th President’s image and historical record needs to come down to earth, on this, the 104th anniversary of his birth, and a quarter century after his leaving office.

So what should Americans and others know about Ronald Reagan, that is not general knowledge?

As California Governor and as President, the issue of mental illness was dealt with by cutting spending, and throwing mental patients onto the streets of America, creating a great increase in homeless population.

As head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Reagan cooperated with the House Unamerican Activities Committee investigation of Communists; worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare; and was an FBI informant for J. Edgar Hoover, all to protect his own image and security as he had been a strong liberal Democrat, and supporter of the New Deal.

Reagan sold illegal arms to Iran, what became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal, as he worked to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, despite Congressional admonitions banning such activities.

Reagan backed the apartheid government of South Africa, despite its horrific violation of human rights, and vetoed a sanctions law, which was passed over his veto in 1986.

Reagan’s Presidency saw the greatest amount of scandals of all sizes, only surpassed by the administrations of Richard Nixon, Ulysses S. Grant, and Warren G. Harding in overall malfeasance.

Reagan’s record on the environment is regarded by scholars as the absolute worst of all Presidents since 1900, and a big letdown after Jimmy Carter, who had one of the top three performances on that issue in American history.

Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis until 1987, and ridiculed the “gay plague”, only taking any interest when young hemophiliac Ryan White, and actor Rock Hudson, were revealed to have the disease in 1985.

Reagan supported backing the groups which fought Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, including such future terrorists as Osama Bin Laden; and also gave support to Saddam Hussein of Iraq in war with Iran, while still supplying arms to Iran.

The high ethical and moral standard said to be part of Reagan’s persona has now been revealed to be inappropriate, as he has been shown to have cheated on his first wife, Jane Wyman, and to have had affairs with dozens of actresses, including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Doris Day, among many others.

For a man who professed “family values”, Reagan and his wife Nancy ignored their children, Patti and Ron, Jr; and hardly saw their grandchild from Reagan stepson Michael; and hardly ever attended church services, although flirting with the Christian Coalition and Moral Majority of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

So the truth about Ronald Reagan is far from the myth that has been promoted!

Presidents Who Began As Democrats But Were Elected To The White House As Republicans!

In the past century, we have had three Presidents who were originally connected to the Democratic Party in some fashion, but ended up becoming President as Republicans.

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) originally served in government under Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, providing Belgian relief at the beginning of World War I, and serving Wilson as an aide throughout the war and at the Versailles Peace Conference. He was rumored to be a possible candidate for President in 1920, but was bypassed, and ended up serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, before running for President in 1928.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) served in the military as one of the top generals of World War II under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, and was offered the chance to run as a Democrat for President in 1948 by Truman himself. When Ike decided to stay nonpartisan, Truman ran for a full term, and then became a critic of Eisenhower, when he ran as a Republican in 1952, and their relationship was frosty for years after until after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was for many years a Democrat, and active as a labor leader for the Screen Actors Guild. He was a loyal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, and then had a change of view, due to his marriage to Nancy Reagan and his working for a very conservative oriented corporation, General Electric, and switched his loyalties to the Republican Party, and got noticed when he gave an inspiring speech for the Presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in 1964. Two years later, he won the Governorship of California as a Republican.

So three Republican Presidents of the last century converted from the Democratic Party roots they originally shared!

Michigan Republicans Declare War On Organized Labor In State Where Labor Unions Became Nationally Significant In 1930s

The state of Michigan was the location of the great auto strikes during the Great Depression years of the 1930s, and their success led to the rise of labor unions as major factors in American society and politics for the next fifty years.

But the Republican Party continued to be anti labor over those decades, and Ronald Reagan coming to the Presidency thirty years ago, ironically a labor leader himself with the Screen Actors Guild, became the beginning of a concerted attack on labor,which has continued in the states with the “Bully” Republican Governors elected in 2010.

And now, Michigan Republicans have declared war on collective bargaining, and have rammed through the legislature a “right to work” bill, which will be signed by Governor Rick Snyder, despite massive protests at the state capital in East Lansing.

Those who believe in collective bargaining and the right of labor to organize must organize and fight over the next two years, not only in Michigan, but in many other Republican states, to defeat the Governors and the reactionary members of the legislatures, in order to regain their basic human rights to decent conditions of work!

Labor Day: Its Meaning

Tomorrow is Labor Day, a moment to commemorate the role of America’s working people, and to mourn the rapid decline of American labor unions, under constant attack by corporations and the Republican Party.

If it were not for labor unions, the kinds of benefits that America’s workers have had—including minimum wage, maximum hours, holidays, sick leave, vacations, occupational safety and health, the end of child labor, promotion of equal pay for women—and others, would not have existed.

But it has become much more difficult for labor unions to overcome the ignorance and hate that has emerged since Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic control controllers who went on strike in 1981, and has continued to face attack by Republican Governors, including Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, and others, who have managed to propagandize that public labor unions are an evil that must be destroyed. It is extremely ironic that the only President to be the head of a labor union—The Screen Actors Guild—-was the one who started the rapid decline of labor organizations in America!

Despite all this, this is a time to reflect on and remember and honor the labor movement, which has had such an impact on America, and to understand that the labor movement is in trouble, but not ready to give up the struggle for America’s workforce over the coming years!

The Symbolic Decline Of Labor: Thirty Years Ago Today, Ronald Reagan Fired The Air Traffic Controllers For Going On Strike

On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for going on strike, and this marked the symbolic decline of labor unions in America ever since, with Republican governors now having declared war on public workers in labor unions in 2011!

Ironic that a former labor leader as head of the Screen Actors Guild became the image of an anti labor President, and even more ironic that tens of thousands of workers working for the Federal Aviation Administration are now out of work over a funding dispute between the Republicans in the House and the Democrats in the Senate. There is absolutely no concern by the Republicans over workers not getting paid, losing their homes, and disrupting the economy, as long as they win the point that only big business matters, as under Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s.

The coming to power of Calvin Coolidge to the Presidency on this day, a leader who thought big business corporations were not “special interests”, but that labor and farmer and small business were such, and did not deserve any government favoritism, demonstrates that the Republican Party has not changed its image despite it being nearly a century later!