No root, No fruit.

[Ichingcarpenter]

[Martin Eden]

1. K&R

It evident that reminders such as this have become necessary.

[mountain grammy]

2. Organize sacrifice unity

Only one of our candidates understand this message. I voted for him and will again in November.

[jtuck004]

3. Yep. n/t

[Plucketeer]

4. Hell....

We have a president who somehow could NEVER find a pair of "comfortable shoes". A president who's showing us how crafty he is by giving corporate powers a SCOTUS nominee that they will feign distaste for, but grudgingly accept once all the stage play is preformed. After all, we have to be competitive with nations where the photo of the OP could have been snapped yesterday.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. +1000000

[A Simple Game]

10. Yes and the fire under the pot most of us are in will be turned up just a little more.

Yet so many, even here on DU, don't see what is happening and will vote for a candidate that will continue to perpetuate the system.

[appalachiablue]

5. "Plutocracy" (2015) documentary; history of US labor movements and suppression.

PBS "The Mine Wars", American Experience Premier Jan. 27, 2016.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. They used to teach the history of the union movement in public schools.

[happyslug]

37. No they did NOT teach union history

My school stop history at the Civil War, that way avoided having to address the 1928 coal strike and the shooting involving my school between strike breakers and union members. I only found out about it years later when looking through old papars of the time period for an unrelated topic. I was surprised but not shocked when I ran across the article.

[appalachiablue]

38. They didn't teach it in my time in school but I knew where to learn about

it, the books, esp. about the southern West Virginia coal mine wars, Mother Jones, Matewan and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1923. That's where I was born, 10 miles from Blair Mountain. Family members were involved in those brutal labor struggles. In the last few years local activists fought to hold off mining efforts around the historic battle area, at least until 2018. None of my college history courses covered US labor and I intend to contact the administration about that gross oversight.

http://appvoices.org/2014/05/12/a-victory-in-the-battle-to-protect-blair-mountain/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. I went to Battle Creek Central High School in the mid 70s.....

The unions were a big deal in Michigan so we heard about the anger boiling over into riots in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

It was presented as a "you've come a long way baby" kinda thing.

[whereisjustice]

7. DNC and RNC are united in exploiting sweatshops overseas...

Hillary is promising to continue building Mexico and Asia with our jibsvwhilrle Trump says he is going to stop it. Trump might be full of shit but that's a big reason he is so popular.

People don't want the Clintons sending more jobs to Mexico and Asia.

[Silver_Witch]

8. If we do not remember...

We are doomed to repeat.

Let us not repeat the horror of children working 12 and 14 hours in mines, factories and living with their families in homes provided by the owner - that were horrific.

Let us remember what it is like today and strive to make tomorrow better still.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. Welcome to DU

Americans have forgotten, and little by little the wealthy have taken back the gains made by the working class. Our grandchildren or theirs will have to fight the same fight our grandparents did

[Silver_Witch]

43. Thank you awoke_in_2003

I agree that we have forgotten and soon we will be reminded of why we have to keep our eyes wide open.

I hope my grandchildren will not have to fight - I hope we awake!

[Dont call me Shirley]

9. And the gop is working diligently to overturn child labor laws. What a bunch of dopes!

[Scootaloo]

13. And not to name names, but SOME Democrats want to create a "warm purple space" with them

[appalachiablue]

41. Newt Gingrich thinks kids working as janitors in their own schools

is a fine idea as he stated several years ago. Sure it is, cuz they're a less expensive labor force. Just like it was before activists fought and died for so many reforms we take for granted. The exploitive free market, global neoliberal economics course must change somehow. Quality of life, work and health for working families and the middle class have regressed dangerously in the last 35 years heaven knows.

[Dont call me Shirley]

42. I remember that. Cause poor kids don't have enough to worry about...

[Major Hogwash]

12. Not that long ago, either.

My grandfather told me some unbelievable stories about the the early 1900s.
And my grandmother would sit and say, "oooh, my" and just shake her head, trying to get the memories out of her mind.

[Doremus]

14. A customer of ours told stories about his father making him work in the mines as a child

Tom said it was backbreaking work in dangerous conditions. He finally ran away from home to escape the mines. The only person who would take him in worked as a prostitute in a brothel, so he lived there for a few years until he was old enough to live on his own. His father never stopped trying to get him to come home to work in the mines.

Fascinating man. He went on to work in top management at Alcoa Aluminum. We didn't meet him until well after he retired and he would come in occasionally and strike up a conversation. Sadly, he took his own life a few years ago.

[corbettkroehler]

15. ¡Sí, Se Puede!

It's little wonder why Bernie continues to garner endorsements from unions which waited until the campaign was in full swing, such as Amalgamated Transit.

http://berniesanders.com/press-release/amalgamated-transit-union-endorses-sanders

[Hydra]

16. The myth is that business owners will take care of their people

in the Caribbean, when slavery was abolished, the plantation owners freaked out...until they realized they can pay bottom dollar for labor and not be concerned with whether the person died or not. There were always more, and they would compete with each other for the privilege of doing the same work as before.

Capitalism has so many myths, it may as well have its own Vatican.

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. $15 not $12

Clinton reaffirmed her position during the town hall by noting the federal minimum wage should not exceed $12 an hour.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/19/sanders-admits-a-15-minimum-wage-will-increase-prices/#ixzz43Nj7KNXj

[highoverheadspace]

18. Now the powers that be have simply moved the forced child labor offshore.

That is what the TPP is really about, no regulation, no oversight, cheap labor and the ability for corporations to sue any country that it thinks isn't in compliance with corporate power. Game over, sadly.

[grasswire]

23. sad, so sad

We must see that as the cost of low prices on goods for us all.

[highoverheadspace]

29. I see it more as simple greed.

We could still have low priced goods if they would run the world in a fair manner. Instead the money just goes to the top while the people on the lower rungs of the ladder suffer.

[dreamnightwind]

32. Truth

REI (just an example, everyone else does it too) charges $60 or $70 for shirts made in cheap labor conditions. I bet they don't spend more than $1 on the labor of those shirts. Profit margins are huge. Time to end this game. Ad if needed, we should be willing to pay more for clothes and other items made with fair labor conditions.

[libodem]

19. .

[rhett o rick]

21. Exploitation is the cornerstone of the Oligarchy that Clinton supports. nm

[CoffeeCat]

22. The fight against child labor laws was ruthless and very powerful

For a long time, child labor laws stood--because child-labor laws were positioned as bad law.

Many lobbied that child-labor laws were "anti-family" and that they would destroy the family unit. In poor communities, children were often forced to work in mills, sweatshops and factories because they had to help support the family. In some of the most impoverished areas, it was rare for kids to complete a high-school education. They had to work.

These laws were fought against by the majority who accused the government of intruding on parental and familial decisions.

In the 1920's only a few states had child labor laws on the books. That wasn't that long ago. Isn't that just nuts!?

Those laws had to be aggressively fought for, after years of tough battles--with many losses along the way.

We are an evolving species...we continue to move forward toward progress and greater sanity--and the fight against inhumane actions, injustice, inequality and corruption will always be a difficult slog.

Those with the power don't give up power easily.

[w0nderer]

24. K&R this is what many people forget

it takes barely a generation or two

and people start saying

unions taking some of my paycheck..not fair

i may wanna start a company..not fair to tax or limit them

we need free capitalism...otherwise we can't compete


all those have forgotten the old days
of child workers with coal lungs
of child workers getting their hands stuck in weaving or spinning machines
of people being locked into a factory on fire and having to jump out from the third floor, die in the flames because the owner wanted to 'force them' to put the fire out
of company store and indebted work
of poor houses and work houses

those who forget history are doomed to re-live it

[w0nderer]

25. a(a-ring actually) dalen shootings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85dalen_shootings

[zentrum]

26. Utah Phillips!

[reACTIONary]

27. When educating Lumpkin libertarians this picture...

.... as well as others of Lewis Hines are worth tens of millions of words. One detail worth mentioning is that we often know the names of these children. In this picture the smallest is Angelo Ross.

More at http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/hine-hugestown2.htm

[haikugal]

28. K&R! Bookmarked!! Thanks for this post.

[BeanMusical]

30. Kick and R

[LibDemAlways]

31. As a teen, my father spent summers working in the coal mines of northeastern PA

with his father. My great-grandfather and a great-uncle had already been killed in mining accidents by then.

Before he was old enough to work in the mines, dad was shipped off to work on a farm for a couple of dollars a week. He must have been 10 or 11. This was during the depression.

We forget that child labor was once common. Very glad to see this post as a reminder.

[SoapBox]

33. If they could...

Powers that be and 1%er's (plus their mindless minions) would return America to those awful days if they could.

[dreamnightwind]

34. Thanks, great OP! And Utah Phillips was (is?) a treasure

I used to see him and Kate Wolf, sometimes just one or the other, at local events, doing their folk songs, wonderful.

For Utah, the songs were almost an afterthought, he would spend most of his time just telling old stories, most of which had a social justice point to them. In a better country, we'd be electing people like Utah. Bernie would approve!

[Wounded Bear]

35. Sing it! nt

[cantbeserious]

36. Bernie Is The Only Antidote To Rampant DNC DWS DLC HRC Third-Way Corporatist Corruption

eom

[mia]

39. Thank you for your post.

I spent last night watching this. Proud to be a union member.