This weeks Bush Follies were enough to make me review one of my favorite books. In 1974 Otto L. Bettmann published a book
"The Good Old Days--They Were Terrible!" The book is still in print, and it is well worth a review as an answer to all those nostalgic Right Wingers who long for a past that never was. Bettmann takes a hard, objective, and critical look at the grime beneath the Gilded Age. He includes facts and anecdotes about pollution, crime, education, housing, traffic, and rural America. Below are some samples from the book that might convince those unfamiliar with it to find it in a local library or bookstore. This might be a good time to review just what America was like in an age of unbridled and unregulated capitalism. Some examples below:----
During the 1890's--Bettman/Page 80: "In the coal regions of Pennsylvania a barrel of flour that cost $6.50 in a cash store was $8.50 at the company store; butter at 19 cents was 25 cents in scrip, and so on. Workers who protested this extortion were not only sacked but evicted from their homes, which the company also owned."
Now, have things improved? Instead of the company store, Wal-Mart moved to rural America with "not always the lowest prices," and employment at wages less than what it would take for a family to send the kids to school, pay medical bills, and save for retirement. Wal-Mart also actively seeks to ban union organizing.
This is very much like during the "Good Old Days,"when (Bettmann/Page 67): "A New England shoe manufacturer sacked outright all of his workers and replaced them with Chinese laborers he brought from the West Coast who were willing to work for $26 a month." ...Jay Gould's response to labor unrest, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
Did Wal-Mart close a store in Canada because of labor organizing?
Have the corporate leaders moved all that far in their thinking from the greed and grab era of the 1890's? Consider the following examples from Levi's and Wal-Mart:
"...while workers in Saipan sewing Levi's blue jeans were making just $3.05 per hour, Levi's CEO Philip Marineau saw his pay soar to $25.1 million (or $11,971 an hour), nearly 15 times what he earned in 2001, according to Sweatshop Watch. The money allocated for Marineau's raise could have accommodated a 50 percent pay increase for more than 7,500 minimum wage workers in Saipan, helping to lift whole communities out of poverty.
cooperative america
"...Consider the example cited in a 2003 National Labor Committee report on a Honduran worker sewing clothing for Wal-Mart at a rate of 43 cents an hour. After spending money on daily meals and transportation to work, the average worker is left with around 80 cents per day for rent, bills, childcare, school costs, medicines, emergencies, and other expenses. Not surprisingly, many workers are forced to take out loans at high interest rates and can't even think about saving money to improve their lives as they struggle to meet their daily needs." cooperative america
During the 1890's--Bettman/Page 79: "One third of all mill employees were children. They also worked in tobacco fields, canneries, and mines; in meatpacking, hosiery, silk, wool, hemp and jute mills. Finally in 1904, the National Child Labor Committee was formed and began its vigorous campaign to protect the coming generation."
We've moved the children outdoors. State and Federal statutes governing child labor since the early 20th century eliminated most mill and factory work for children. However, most young workers are toiling in agricultural jobs. Helping out on the family farm or ranch is one thing, using children among contract labor in field is another, and young migrants are among the most vulnerable.
"Children working in agriculture face an alarming array of dangers. On a daily basis they may be exposed to carcinogenic pesticides, dramatically unsanitary conditions, heat-related illnesses, and hazardous equipment. Their immature and still-growing bodies are more vulnerable than adults' bodies to systemic damage, and their lack of experience makes them more susceptible to accidents and work-related sicknesses." From Human Rights Watch 2000 "Fingers to the Bone"
Human Rights Watch
Two examples press that point home. These are children, not statistics, these are our children:
On June 27, 1997, seventeen-year-old migrant farmworker Jos_ Antonio Casillas collapsed and died while riding his bike near his home in rural Utah. Emergency workers found white foam streaming from his nose. According to Jos_'s uncle, the day before he died the boy had been soaked with pesticide sprayed from a tractor; a week earlier he had also been sprayed, while working in a peach orchard. After the second spraying he showed symptoms of severe pesticide poisoning, including vomiting, sweating, diarrhea and headaches. He had received no training from his employer regarding pesticide dangers and the symptoms of exposure, and reportedly slept in his pesticide-soaked clothing the night before his death.21
Human Rights Watch
Damaris was 13 years old when she began working in the broccoli and lettuce fields of Arizona. During peak season, she would often work 14 hours a day in 100-degree temperatures. For months on end she suffered frequent nosebleeds and nearly passed out on several occasions. Despite illness from exposure to dangerous pesticides, she kept on working. "It was very difficult," she told Human Rights Watch. "I just endured it."
Between 300,000 and 800,000 children like Damaris are working as hired laborers in commercial U.S. agriculture today. These farm-worker children weed cotton fields, pick lettuce and cantaloupe and climb rickety ladders in cherry and apple orchards. They often work 12 or more hours a day, sometimes beginning at 3 or 4 in the morning. They risk serious illness, including cancer and brain damage, from exposure to pesticides, and suffer high rates of injury from working with sharp tools and heavy machinery. Common Dreams
See Bureau of Labor Statistics report Report on the Youth Labor Force
Well, at least we can drink the water just like the Good Old Days?
Bettman: "Fresh Water Well?" "The stone well and wooden bucket are romantic symbols of country life of the nineties, evoking nostalgia for the purity of spring water and derisive snorts at the chemical `manipulation' of modern tap water....For practical purposes the well was dug close to the farmhouse, which itself was close to the barnyard, stable, pigsty, coop and cesspool. With not even a pretense of drainage, the well was thus exposed to all sorts of noxious matter seeping through the ground."
But, this was before the era of "Cap and Trade" pollution standards. How about "..close to the power plant, poultry operation, hog processing plant, ...and cesspools?"