happy labor day! where did it come from? where has it gone?

Today is the first Monday in September, which is celebrated as Labor Day in the U.S. and Canada. Watch this video (part of the TED-Ed series) and read this brief article by Carter for an overview of its origins. While the holiday arose over a century ago at a time of rising union militancy in reaction to labor exploitation and government repression, Carter's closing remarks seem most appropriate:
These snapshots from Chicago’s first Labor Day suggest a crucial difference between the Gilded Age of the late-nineteenth century and the one we find ourselves in today. Even as contemporary disparities between rich and poor approach historic proportions, Americans today are not nearly as engaged in the kinds of freewheeling debates over the morality of capitalism that consumed many of those who lived through industrialization’s peak decades. In their world, devastating recessions elicited fundamental questions about the shape of the nation’s economic life. In their world, concerns about the experiences of the workers and the fate of the working classes saturated public conversation. It is a world removed from our own and yet one that – on Labor Day, no less – is well worth revisiting. 

the clothes on your back

Several months ago, The Toronto Star published  a series of articles and videos on the global supply-production-consumption chain of clothing, The Clothes on Your Back. The series examines such interrelated topics as slave labor in Uzbekistan cotton fields, clothing production in Asian sweatshops--particularly involving child labor, and the current retail boom in Canada.

a heavy price

Gold lust is exacting a heavy price among children living near the mines of northern Nigeria. According to this Human Rights Watch article and video, over 400 children have died in this area from lead poisoning, and thousands more remain in need of critical medical treatment. Children are largely exposed to lead as they work in local gold mines, and by general environmental pollution throughout miner homes and in soil and water. To date, no clean-up efforts have begun. (See related videos at this site.)