WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: James Bertolone serves as President of the Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, whose 300 Affiliated Union Locals Combine to Represent 100,000 Union Members in the Rochester & Finger Lakes Regions of New York State.  He also serves as President of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 215 in Rochester.

This Year's Theme for Rochester's Labor Day Parade is Worker's Rights Are Human Rights, Something That Was Once Readily Understood by Most People in the Past - but is an Alien Concept in Today's Historically-Challenged World. 

In the Past 32 years, since President's Reagan broke PATCO, the Air Traffic Controller's Union, Elected Union Leaders Have Been Nearly Shut Out and Marginalized by the Corporate Dominated Mainstream Media. 

Prior to the Last 30 years, it Was Unusual When Any News Program on Politics, Civil Rights or Any Segment of the Economy - from Minimum Wage to Health Care, Did Not Include a Representative of Labor to Express Working America's Views on the Subject. 

I Am Hopeful the Current State of American Workers is Forcing a Change in the Hearts and Minds of All Workers - Which Can No Longer Be Ignored by the Corporate Media. 

We are Seeing Low-Wage Workers, Who Don't Belong To Unions, Say Enough! 

They are Using the Freedom of Association, Self-Organization and Taking Concerted Action, as Stated in Labor Law, to Demand Justice, Namely Decent Wages. 

Labor Unions, Church Groups and Civil Rights Groups have Come to Their Aid Because Already, Walmart for one, has Fired Some for Exercising What Are Supposed To Be Protected Rights. 

This is Being Covered by the Mainstream Press - Much to the Chagrin of Millionaire Executives and Stockholders at Fast Food Corporations and Retail Chains. 

It is Actually Being Questioned in the Media As To Why the Richest Nation In The World has the Lowest Minimum Wage of First World Industrial Nations? 

In Australia, a Place Never Touched by the Great Recession, Workers Make Over $16 per hour and McDonalds Makes 19% Profit on Revenues, Doing Very Well. 

In France it’s $12.50 an hour. 

In America, as Service Industry Protests Mount Against Poverty Wages, More And More Receive Welfare Than Have Jobs. 

We Listen to Corporate Propaganda That Higher Wages Create Higher Costs, which is Then Passed On to Consumers - an Automatically Bad Thing. 

In fact, 100 Economists have Estimated that Raising the Minimum Wage to $10.50 an hour Would Result in a Whole Nickel Increase to a Big Mac. 

Newsweek Reported on Calculations from Economists that $15 an hour Would Likely Add 22 cents to the Retail Price of a Big Mac. 

During this Recovery, it has been Estimated that 21% of Job Losses were Considered Low Wage Positions, while 58% of Jobs Added During the Recovery were Considered Low Wage Jobs. 

About 12 Ago, America had the Largest Share of 25-to-34 year olds Employed Among Large, Wealthy Economies. 

We Are Now Among The Lowest. 

The Wall Street Journal has Noted that Nearly 300,000 People With At Least a Bachelors Degree are Making the Minimum Wage in 2012 - Double the Number in 2007!  This, While Total Student Debt Has Quadrupled in 10 Years.  The Bottom 47% of America has Zero Wealth, as Their Debts Exceed Their Assets!  Yet, our Politicians Cater to Too Big To Fail while American Homeowners Have Been Too Small To Matter.
 
While More Americans Continue to Struggle, the Corporate Media - Led by Fox News, Continues to Bash Unions as Bad and The Reason for Out-Sourcing. 

They Continue to Promote Cutting Costs for Corporations and the Rich as Job Creation, which Has Been Proven False Over and Over. 

Cutting Taxes for the Rich Does Not Create Jobs - Consumer Demand Creates Jobs. 

That Means Upward Mobility and a Growing Middle Class. 

But We’ve Had the Opposite. 

Wealth Inequality is Nearly Unprecedented and There Has Been a Redistribution of Wealth to the Top for Decades – and Those are Facts To Be Dealt With No Matter Your Politics. 

Fox News Would Have You Believe it’s that High Cost of Union Labor Off-Shoring Jobs. 

The Overwhelming Majority of Jobs that have Gone Off-Shore for More Than a Decade and a Half have been Jobs Not Represented by Unions. 

In Fact, During That Time - 10% or Less of Private Sector Jobs have been Represented by Unions.  In the Last Decade, the Many Jobs Off-Shored Do Not Come Under The Unionization Rules of the Wagner Act.  They are Managerial and/or Professional, Technical, and Research and Development Jobs in Medical Services, Financial Services, Computer Science and Engineering. 

With this Backdrop, What Have Republicans in Congress, Sometimes Joined By Neo-Liberal Democrats, Done? 

They’ve Killed a Jobs Bill in 2011 That Would Have Added 2 million Jobs to Repair Our Infrastructure. 

They Filibustered a Bill to Stop Tax Breaks to Companies Creating or Moving Jobs Off-Shore and Instead Took Steps that Eliminated Jobs, like the Sequester. 

At a Recent Hearing on Unemployment in Congress, Only One Republican Even Bothered to Show Up.
 
This Brings Me Back to the Theme of This Year's Labor Day Parade, Worker's Rights are Human Rights. 

We are Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his I Have A Dream speech.  Organized by Civil Rights, Labor and Religious Leaders, the March Drew 250,000 People, With Not One Violent Incident Occurring, and 10 Demands. 

Key Among Those was "A Massive Federal Program to Train and Place Workers, Black and White, on Meaningful, Dignified Jobs at Decent Wages", and "A National Minimum Wage Act that Will Give ‘All’ Americans a Decent Standard of Living." 

Back in 1963, the Minimum Wage Left Workers in Poverty. 

It was $1.25 per hour. 

Adjusted for Inflation - that would be $10.50 per hour, Inadequate But More Than a Third Higher than it Currently Stands.
 
The Goals of that Original March on Washington are an Unfinished Path, but Sometimes Social Movements Trying to Change an Unjust Status Quo Fall Back, Even For Decades, If Economic and Political Injustice Are Not Rooted Out. 

Whether Redistribution of the Wealth Upward, or the War on Drugs as the Second Coming of Jim Crow, the Struggle Does Continue. 

The Oppression of Black People, and Periods of Discrimination Against Other Minorities, has Always Functioned as a Cornerstone for the Ruling Elite's Ability to Divide and Exploit Workers, While Making Huge Profits for Themselves in the Process. 

We Know that Labor and Civil Rights Movements are Joined at the Hip and Need To Be in Greater Solidarity Than Ever Before Because Worker's Rights - whether in Rochester, New York, Detroit or Bangladesh, are Human Rights.
 
President Abraham Lincoln said: "If a Man Tells You He Loves America, But Hates Labor, He Is A Liar." 

To Paraphrase Franklin Delaware Roosevelt, He Claimed More Than Once that When Millionaires, Bankers and Corporations Control Your Government, That Is Fascism. 

Dr. King said the Labor Hater and Race Baiter were the Same Person. 

You Cannot Hate Labor and Labor Unions and Claim You Are For Civil Rights and Human Rights. 

You Just Can't. 

Outside of the Rush-Fox Bubble, It Is A Contradiction In Terms And Just Not Reality.