At the turn of last century, workers unionized to force a change in their workplace conditions. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle that highlighted the plight of new immigrants as well as some of the more disgusting parts of the meat industry. Woody Guthrie wrote and sang of the conditions many people survived during their work “days.” Children were forced into the workforce to help support their families. Robber barons lived, literally, off the suffering and misery of their workers. The few profited from the blood, sweat and tears of many.
People were killed in their struggle for humane work conditions. More people died just trying to get through their daily grind. Many people were maimed due to the lack of medical care, OSHA standards and faulty mechanics. The Triangle Shirt Factory is one example of worker deaths due to employers’ sociopathy and/or psychopathy. The federal government, at first (under Herbert Hoover), sided with the robber barons before a populist president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was elected. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt went out to meet with the striking populations. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins slowly began changing the culture from the top down on how labor relations were approached by the government.
The Bread and Roses strike of 1912 brought to the forefront the fact that working class people deserved not only bread, but roses, too. The idea of a work day consisting of 8 hours of work, 8 hours of leisure and 8 hours of rest was born. The modern day weekend, two days off at the end of the work week was instituted. Pay based on human efficiency was also instituted.
The Greatest Generation built much of our infrastructure because FDR had to pull the US out of the Great Depression — a time when capitalists nearly ruined everything. FDR brought about the New Deal which essentially gave us the federal precedent upon which is built our modern ideas about civil rights and human rights. It included socializing our educational system, part of our healthcare system, allowed for freeways to be built and humanized the American workforce. No longer were we forced to buy all of our goods from the company stores, live in company housing and essentially return our paychecks back to the companies for which we labored.
The Greatest Generation gave way to the Boomers. Under the Boomers, we saw a rollback of our union rights, the undermining of the New Deal, the stripping of worker protections and the end of what the previous generation worked so hard to provide for future generations. The Boomers couldn’t even get the Equal Rights Act passed. We had to wait to get the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the repeal of DADT, even though the Boomers were allegedly so passionate about civil rights.
The Boomers are slowly aging out, but have given us one last hurrah with this current administration. The next generation after the Boomers has been referred to as the Forgotten Generation or Generation X. We have been forgotten as we have no sense of our own country’s history; I would go more into this, but it really is a topic best suited for a book that can cover the history of our educational system, how we treat our educational system, examine how society approaches education and how our educational system went from the envy of the world to “Meh, American schools.”
If we had any contact with the Greatest Generation, we had no cultural context with which to reference. The Boomer generation was generally disgruntled with their parents’ generation. Because of this sibling rivalry between the Greatest and the Boomers, Gen X were left to make the best sense out of what was happening as we could. And, I can’t say as we have really done much except for regain the White House for two terms, helped elect the first African American president in our country’s history, and pulled our economy out of a major (read: “great”) depression.
Generation X has yet to really make it’s mark. Why don’t we begin by fighting for the rights gained under the Greatest Generation? We can find our place in history by rebuilding our basic rights as humans, as full and equal citizens of our country. We can restrengthen our unions, rededicate our focus to educating future generations and revive the American dream that the New Deal gave to so many who came before us.
Every American worker deserves employment security, a living wage and to be treated fairly by their employers. We deserve to be treated with respect in the workplace. We deserve a humane balance between work and family life, without fear of what happens when we are too old, too physically broken or otherwise unable to work. Employers need to realize their social compact with their employees to provide for the needs of now as well as later. After all, employers would not exist without their workers.
Yeah, the Boomers can complain about the sorry state of affairs our country currently finds itself in, but the younger generations should respond, “What did you do to make it better for us?” Yeah, there was quite a bit of idealism during the Boomer generation, but it gave way to greed, selfishness and a bunch of destructive “isms.” It really is up to the Xers and the Millennials to continue where the Greatest Generation left off. We cannot allow the Boomers’ disenchantment to continue to ruin our country’s future.