Ireland: What exactly are we celebrating?

There is a lot of history behind the Labor Day holiday with some of the most dramatic battles being right here in Colorado. This county is named after Gov. Frederick W. Pitkin, an Indian fighter and the force behind the crushing of the 1880 silver miners' strike in Leadville. Things we consider innate rights and solid guarantees for working people are neither. Living wages were bitterly resisted in the Silver Age here and throughout the country with the owners of capital enlisting militia and armed might to damp down strikes or demands for better wages and working conditions. Our county's namesake, Pitkin, broke strikes and forcibly removed the Utes from their 'forever' home after the natives rose up and killed agent Nathan Meeker. Mining was and remains dangerous. The 10- to 12-hour workday often included seven days a week for as little as $1 per day or as much as $3 per day: what would be in the range of $30 to $40 today. Rules could be as harsh as working conditions — in Leadville, the miners were forbidden to converse or smoke during work hours. It is a small and tenuous sign of progress that strikes are no longer commonly settled by armed troops, though the possibility of occupation by troops enforcing political goals is no longer off the table. Ask anyone who understands what went down with ICE and Minneapolis last winter, when demonstrators were shot and killed followed by baloney stories about 'self defense.' The people at the bottom of the economic ladder today often are immigrants, the successors to the Italians, Germans, Irish and Chinese who built the infrastructure that fueled this nation's ascension to global economic dominance. None of those early groups were considered 'illegals,' though none of them were treated with much dignity.