I am celebrating Labor Day today. I am the son of a Teamster and I have been a member of the American Federation of Musicians since 1979. I believe in the power and necessity of Unions. Today I am revisiting a couple of movies and some songs that encapsulate the feelings I have for the power of workers and collective bargaining. The movies are classics-The Grapes of Wrath and Matewan. The former is known to nearly everyone. The latter is not. Matewan is a John Sayles movie about the Battle of Matewan. It was the violent end to a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, West Virginia. The first time I saw it was in 1988 and then it disappeared. When I was able to find a copy I bought it. It's a remarkable film that shows just how difficult it was to birth a union movement in America. In addition to the films, I dove back into Bruce Springsteen's 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad. Mikal Gilmore wrote in Rolling Stone: “These are times for lamentations, for measuring how much of the American promise has been broken or abandoned and how much of our future is transfigured into a vista of ruin. These are pitiless times”. It was true in 1995 and it's perhaps more true today. Union membership has been dropping precipitously since it peaked in 1970. It is most apparent in the lack of wage growth in America. Springsteen took on many of these issues in The Ghost of Tom Joad. The title song has obvious roots in The Grapes of Wrath. The final verse paraphrases Tom's conversation with his mother right before he disappears:
Tom said...Ma, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Where there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me
It's a brave song that takes a braver stand. If we want to be more than a service industry nation we should listen to Steinbeck and Springsteen and heed their words.
