This is an opinion piece by Robert Hall, content creator and small business owner.
Organized labor has empowered people to fight big business and secure their labor rights. Bitcoin is empowering the people to protect these rights once and for all.
Labor Day is usually a time to relax with friends and family, grill hot dogs, and enjoy some well-deserved downtime before the holidays heat up. Although it has come to represent the contemporary meaning of Labor Day, its origin dates back more than a century.
Oregon was the first state to recognize Labor Day as a statutory holiday. The first bill was passed on February 21, 1887. By the end of 1894, 23 states had adopted the holiday, and Congress made it a federally recognized holiday in the same year.
Organized work has played a central role in creating the work environments we have today. Workers and workers’ rights were not respected at the height of the industrial revolution. Working life at that time was hell. Would you like to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week and barely get by? These are the conditions under which many of your ancestors worked to support their families.
Children as young as five years old were forced to work to feed their families. Child laborers now are considered inhuman, but they called it normal back then. In addition to working long hours, working conditions were unsafe and business owners might have cared less about your health and well-being.
Years of work like this have left people tired, fed up and ready to revolt – not too different from what we have today, is it? Back then, workers took to the streets and sometimes got killed to protest for their rights as people not to be exploited by the monetary elite.
The “Haymarket Affair” was a case where people were killed. Seven police officers and four civilians were killed when police tried to break up a pro-worker rally in Chicago.
Blood was shed to give us what we take for granted. Do you like working only 8 hours a day? You have organized the work to thank for this. Do you like to relax on the weekend? You also have the unions to thank for that. Do you have health insurance through your employer? You can also thank the organized work.
We must give credit where it is due. Without the efforts of the labor movement, where would America be now? Working our tails with no chance of living a good life? I’m going to take a hard pass on that one. We’re not supposed to work to the bone and die. The credit-based monetary system and the incentive to exploit people created appalling working conditions before organized labor took hold.
Unions tend to get bad press because of partisan media and the way they are portrayed to the general public. This appears to be working as union membership has grown from its peak of 20% of the workforce (17 million people) to 14 million in 2021 (10.3).
Unions no longer have the power they once had to improve working environments and raise workers’ wages. This role has been largely transferred to state and local governments. This change was accompanied by a change in the concentration of trade union membership. Public sector employees have the highest unionization rates at 33.9%. This rate is five times higher than that of workers in the private sector, which is 6%.
The departure of unions from the private sector has left workers to fend for themselves against rapacious corporate conglomerates that push their employees to the limit. Employee burnout is a real phenomenon and workers are quitting in droves. The term “great resignation” does not come from nowhere.
White-collar and blue-collar workers cannot escape the crushing hamster wheel created by fiat currency. The very people we depend on to care for us are under immense pressure. Fourteen percent of physicians reported using drugs or drinking at work to deal with the burnout and PTSD of the pandemic. We’re in serious trouble, folks.
The root of this problem is credit-based money and the need for central banks to inflate money. It’s inflation that makes businesses and people race faster on the hamster wheel until we reach a breaking point. How can workers throw a spanner in the hamster wheel and stop it once and for all?
Bitcoin gives power back to the people
Bitcoin is the best tool to economically empower every worker in the United States and around the world. Bitcoin returns the energy that the central banks of the world stole from you. Bitcoin allows you to make your own economic decision without state interference.
Bitcoin lets you plan for the future without worrying that your hard-earned wealth will melt away on the whims of a faceless banker in a smoky room somewhere. Bitcoin takes away that power once and for all.
Unions on a bitcoin standard would still be needed to ensure workers’ rights are upheld and protected. Unions would no longer have to negotiate wages as vigorously as they did in the past, because inflation would no longer be the scourge that devours union wages.
With a deflationary currency, goods and services will become cheaper, not more expensive. The quality of life would increase significantly with good benefits. Workers will demand to be paid in sats once the general public recognizes this basic truth.
Help empower the people by adopting a Bitcoin standard in your life. Lead by example and watch others follow your lead.
This is a guest post by Robert Hall. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.