Showing posts with label Labor Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labor Day. Show all posts

04 September 2023

A Labor Day Ride


 Today is Labor Day in the US.

In previous posts, I discusses races and other organized rides held on this holiday as well as the roles bicycles and bicycling have played in the labor movement and workers’ lives.  Today, however, I want to talk about something I saw during my ride this morning.

Knowing that a hot, humid afternoon was forecast, I took a pre-breakfast/brunch spin to Fort Totten (about 40 km round-trip) on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear. This ride includes, as it usually does, the Malcolm X Promenade, which rims Flushing Bay (where the East River and Long Island Sound meet) from LaGuardia Airport to the Northern Boulevard Bridge to Flushing. 

There are park benches along the Promenade so, not surprisingly, it serves as a lover’s lane, spot for impromptu small parties and simply a place for people to hang out and enjoy views of the water, airport and Manhattan skyline.

I have also seen the unhoused there.  If J they catch my attention, or they catch mine and I am carrying anything edible, I offer it,  They invariably thank me and sometimes eat it as I am pedaling away.  Are they testing it, or do they somehow know that I didn’t spike it with chemicals or ground glass?

Anyway, I have also noticed people—almost always Hispanic men—sleeping or hanging out on benches. I know they are not among the unhoused because they are not flanked or propped by bags or carts full of possessions.



They are most likely like a man who sometimes sits in the doorways of apartment buildings or on the stoops of houses on my block. He always greets me; he “knows” me because he works in a store I sometimes frequent. I see him from late afternoon or early evening to around midnight.

What might he have in common with at least one of the people I saw along the Malcolm X Promenade? Well, for one thing, he works a job that doesn’t pay well. For another, he lives in a room in “shifts.”

He’s in those doorways or on those stoops during the hours when his “roommate“—who probably is in a situation like his—is there. They share the room, and the rent, with another man who is most likely in similar circumstances.

I am mentioning them—and the people I saw during my ride this morning—because they are often forgotten on this day. I am happy that unions are regaining some of the power they’ve lost since the Air Traffic Controllers’ strike of 1981.  But for every union member who’s regained some of the rights, benefits and pay they lost, there are many more like the man on my block or the ones I saw during my ride this morning: the ones who don’t have unions, knowledge of the system or fluency in English to advocate for themselves, let alone anyone else.

05 September 2022

What, And How, We Have Delivered

Today is Labor Day in the U.S.A.  I am going to talk about some people who make their livings on their bikes.

No, this isn't about professional bicycle racers.  Rather, I am referring to messengers and delivery workers.

I was a New York City bicycle messenger for just over a year, in 1983-84.  FAX machines were becoming fixtures in offices and other work (and, in a few cases, residential) settings;  a decade would pass before the Internet would connect them.  Still another decade or so would go by before documents like contracts that required signatures could be sent digitally.

Nearly four decades ago, most restaurant and other delivery workers rode bicycles; so did just about all messengers.  The differences between and among us were in the kinds of bikes we rode.  Some restaurant and pizzeria delivery workers pedaled specially-made industrial bicycles with fitted baskets, most of which were made by Worksman Bicycles, still located just a few miles from my apartment.  Others--and some messengers--rode whatever they could get, from whomever they could. (It was common knowledge that if your bike was stolen, you should go to (pre-gentrified)  St. Mark's Place where, shall we say, one didn't ask questions.)  And then there were messengers who rode the then-newfangled mountain bikes or bikes that seemed newfangled to most people even thought they'd been around since the early days of bicycles. I am talking, of course, about fixed-gear machines.

Such was the case until well into the 2010s.  These days, however, you never see a delivery worker on a pedal-only bicycle:  They're riding e-bikes.  The reason for that is, of course, that most are working, not for the restaurants themselves, but for app companies like DoorDash, who classify their deliverers as "independent contractors."  That means those workers are paid--and their terms of employment depend on metrics the company keeps.  

I, and most other messengers, were paid in the same way.  The difference was that we weren't working for app companies that recorded our every move and turned the data into "metrics."  If we got that contract or sample--or, in one case I recall vividly, a paining from a Soho gallery (Yes, the neighborhood hadn't yet become an open-air mall.) to Judy Collins (Yes, that Judy Collins!) in a timely fashion, we were considered "good" messengers and got more work.  

As the wheels under delivery workers turned from pedal bicycles to eBikes, bicycle messengers disappeared.  I rarely them anymore, even in the Financial District and other dense neighborhoods of Manhattan.  Much of the reason for that is, of course, the digitization of documents.  Not only does that mean much less work overall; it also means that are few urgent or "rush" deliveries.  That, in turn, means customers are less willing to pay more than a couple of dollars to have, say, a sample of a neon hoodie brought to their door.


Photo by Cole Burston, for the Toronto Star



I hope I don't sound like an old fogie (after all this is Midlife Cycling!) pining for "the good old days."  But there is much I miss about the messengering milieu of four decades ago.  For one, I was able to make pretty decent money--which is precisely what enabled me to move back to New York.  For another, it was a job that people like me, a young misfit, could do.  Finally, being an "independent contractor" meant that I was, well, independent:  As long as the jobs I took on were done quickly, people didn't care about how I dressed (though I did try to be neat, as I occasionally entered professional offices) or, for that matter whether I was hung over or high.

OK, now I'll tell you about one of the dirty little secrets of the trade.  In addition to consuming lots of pizza, pasta, rice and beans, french fries and other high-carb foods, we partook of, uh, certain herbal substances.  I haven't smoked weed since, probably, a year or two after I stopped working as a messenger, but in those days, I smoked stuff I rolled myself.  So did just about every other messenger I knew.

(One great thing about getting older is that the statute of limitations runs out on most non-capital offenses!)

I think that for food delivery workers, nearly all of whom are immigrants, there is a more serious consequence. Ebikes are far more expensive than regular bicycles.  Few, if any, can pay for them up front.  So, they are in debt, whether to the dealers who sold them the machines or to whomever loaned them the money.  


Photo by Paul Frangipane, for Bloomberg News



Oh, and even though the New York City Council ruled  that delivery workers for app companies are, in fact, employees who are entitled to minimum wage, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and other benefits, the companies are simply flouting the law because they know a worker who's in debt and doesn't speak English well or at all is in no position to fight them.

In short, the changes in delivery work--and the near-disappearance of messenger work--has, to whatever degree, contributed to the ever-widening gap between, not just the rich and poor, but also (and more importantly, I believe) between those who can gain a foothold in this economy and move up, and those who can't.  I have to wonder what the young person I was--depressed and angry, unable to deal with office politics or over-entitled clients--would do today.


06 September 2021

A Memorial On The Labor Day Tour

Every year from 1940 until 1942 and 1947 until 2019, the Tour of Sommerville--"the Kentucky Derby of cycling"--was held on Memorial Day.  That day, on the fourth Monday of May, is called "the unofficial beginning of Summer in the United States.

For many, today--Labor Day--is the unofficial end of the season.  The following day, most people have returned to work. (Grim but interesting fact:  Mohammed Atta, the "mastermind" of 9/11, chose that date because it fell on the Tuesday following Labor Day, when he figured almost everybody would be on their jobs--and thus provide more potential victims.)  So, I suppose it's appropriate that the Tour of Somerville, after being cancelled altogether last year, was re-scheduled to this date.  





Near the race course stands a monument to Furman Kugler, who won the event's first two editions.  Encased in Plexiglas is a photo of him next to the bike he rode--a Shelby Classic.  Interestingly, it bears more semblance to a track than a criterium bike of its time, with its wooden rims and fixed gear.  According to Tom Avenia, it was de rigeur at the time.  I'd take his word on that:  He rode in several editions of the Tour--on a fixed gear, during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Perhaps more to the point, neither Kugler nor Carl Anderson, who won in 1942, would return when the Tour resumed:  Both lost their lives while fighting in World War II.

Perhaps the monument to Kugler would be more fitting on Memorial Day.  But at least it's there, and the Tour is running again this year.

07 September 2020

This Labor Day Ride?

Today is Labor Day in the US.

This year, the holiday is different:  Most large gatherings, including parades, have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  So have many organized bicycle rides.

I have to wonder whether these riders would have been sanctioned for not keeping their "social distance":




Perhaps they're all related?  After all, your family can't make you sick, right?

02 September 2019

Nothing To Lose But Our Chains

Today is Labor Day in the US.  Some leftist historians and economists invoke the spectre of Karl Marx, although he had nothing to do with creating the holiday.  He died a decade before it was first observed, and several years before the first International Workers' Day, a.k.a. May Day.

Still, his name is invoked by some, mainly on the left, who see the erosion of workers' and unions' power in the globalized economy.  And, one of his most famous rallying cries is used to promote all sorts of events that have little, if anything, to do with honoring the contributions of working people:

From the Reno Bike Project

03 September 2018

Labor Day: Bicycles, Workers And This Economy

Today is Labor Day here in the US.


Image result for labor day bicycle sale


In years past (here and here), I've written about the ways in which bicycle manufacturers, at least in this country, haven't always treated workers very well.  Now there's not much left of the cycle industry:  All but the most expensive bikes from makers like Trek and Specialized are made in countries where workers make much lower wages and have practically no rights.

Unfortunately, that brings me to our current President.  How any working person can see him as an ally is beyond me.

I mean, he imposed tariffs with the ostensible purpose of bringing jobs back to this country.  But I don't think steel mills, let alone bicycle factories, are going to reappear in the US any time soon, if ever.  And, tariffs or no tariffs, corporations will go to wherever they can get the job done at the lowest cost.  That leaves the rest of us holding the bag:  Unless you're buying a bike like Shinola or the most expensive racing machines from Trek or Specialized--or a custom frame--it's all but impossible to find a bike that's made in the US.  And, even those super-bikes are outfitted with components that come from those low-wage countries.


Then again, for some categories of products, there isn't even a partially-made-in-the-USA alternative to something from China or Indonesia or wherever.  Just try to find a computer or "smart" phone, or just about any article of clothing (except, again, for the most expensive) that's made in any fair-wage country where workers can organize.


Still, I think cycling is a better remedy than automobile travel or other kinds of industry for workers and their rights.  Dependency on fossil fuels (or, worse, fracking or nuclear power) will not make workers safer, healthier or more prosperous:  Only cleaner, "greener" jobs can do that in the current economy.

And at least we can still enjoy a ride on this day. It sure beats sitting in traffic!


05 September 2016

They Busted Their Unions And Broke Their Brands

Two years ago, on Labor Day, I wrote about the strike metal platers, polishers and buffers waged against Schwinn and Excelsior-Henderson (two motorcycle manufacturers Schwinn owned) in 1919.  

Although the Bike Boom that spanned the last decade of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th had gone bust, Schwinn continued to prosper because it was one of the first bicycle manufacturers to market bicycles as children's' toys as it continued to make bikes for adults.  Also, Schwinn acquired other bike manufacturers as well as the aforementioned makers of motorcycles, which were ascending in popularity.  

The metalworkers knew that Herr Schwinn could, shall we say, afford to buy the products his company made, in whatever quantity he desired. The same could not be said for his workers.  They rode his bikes to work, but often had to purchase them on installment plans.

They made demands that Schwinn found outrageous:  a 44-hour workweek and wages of 85 cents an hour.  He could not believe their audacity, not to mention their ingratitude, and did what any good industrialist who saw his financial life flashing before his eyes would do:  He got injunctions against the unions whose members were canceling orders, or not placing them in the first place, in sympathy with the strikers.  He also had strikers arrested on trumped-up charges, hired thugs to use "friendly persuasion" to convince strikers to cross picket lines--and made his foremen  use said workers for target practice.  After all, a strike is stressful and, as a friend of mine pointed out, going to the shooting range is "relaxing".

Anyway, all of the labor journals of the day urged readers to support the strikers in any way they could, whether by standing with them physically or participating in the boycotts--not only against Schwinn, but against the companies that did business with the bike-maker.

Well, it turns out that wasn't the last instance of Schwinn trying to subvert labor organization in its plants, at least according to more than one source.  In the early 1980s, Schwinn began to manufacture in a new Mississippi facility.  Now, to be fair, the old Chicago complex was outdated and would have needed extensive reworking to make the kinds of bikes for which demand was developing. But, it also just so happened that workers in that facility organized (affiliating themselves with the United Auto Workers) and struck in 1980.  Mississippi, like other southern states, has a long history of hostility to unions. 

Anyway, during the first few years of production, the quality of those bikes from the Magnolia State left something to be desired.  Again, to be fair, so did the quality of the bikes Schwinn would import from Hungary a few years later.  And, while the company had already shifted some of its production overseas, it was late to develop working relationships with their Japanese--and, later, Taiwanese and Chinese--subcontractors.  It also was slow to identify trends such as mountain bikes.

The result, of course, was bankruptcy, and its acquisition by a conglomerate that owns an number of other bike brands.  Like bikes bearing those names,  "Schwinn Brand" bikes are made in China and sold in big-box stores. (The "Schwinn Signature" series, which consists of higher-quality bikes and accessories, is sold only in bike shops.)  So have the mighty fallen.

Again, to be fair, Schwinn is not the only, or even the first, bike manufacturer to break its workers' union and, in doing so, sow some of the seeds of its destruction.


Some you may have owned or ridden a "Roadmaster" bicycle.  The brand first saw the light of day in 1936, when Cleveland Welding Company (CWC)--which made bicycles for a number of other companies--introduced it.   American Machine and Foundry (AMF) purchased the Roadmaster children's and youth bicycle lines in 1950.  I couldn't find much information about the transaction, but my uninformed guess is that CWC went out of businesses, or was simply divesting itself out of unprofitable enterprises.


1937 Cleveland Welding Company "Roadmaster" Bicycle


AMF then formed a wheel goods division, which made tricycles, pedal cars and tractors, and wagons in addition to bicycles.  Like the Chicago Schwinn plant of the 1970s, the CWC facilities AMF inherited were antiquated and AMF executives looked into replacing them.

And, in an eerie parallel with Schwinn in 1980, AMF workers in Cleveland--who were organized by (you guessed it) the United Auto Workers--struck in 1953.  The labor stoppage was, like Schwinn's in 1919 and 1980, long and acrimonious.  And AMF resolved it the way Schwinn did their second strike:  by opening up a new factory in a state where unions were (and are) all but non-existent.  In AMF's case, the new locale was Arkansas--in the capital, Little Rock, to be exact.


1964 AMF Roadmaster "Skyrider"


Now, no one ever equated the quality of AMF/Roadmaster bikes with those of Schwinn, not even the ones made in Mississippi or Hungary.  But the company, again like Schwinn, enjoyed prosperity during the Baby Boom-fueled population growth of the 1960s and 70s--and, of course, one of its offsprings, the '70's Bike Boom.  Then the Little Rock factory, like Schwinn's Chicago facility, became outdated and--even though Arkansas AMF workers didn't unionize--the company's management whined about labor costs. So, off to the mystic East they went.

Now Roadmaster is owned by Pacific--ironically, the same company that now owns Schwinn.  I'm not saying that avoiding and busting unions or outsourcing alone led to the subsumation of Schwinn and Roadmaster.  But I think that the "race to the bottom" in production costs helped, along with other bad management decisions, to debase the quality of what each company was selling and, subsequently, its reputation (more so in the case of Schwinn).  Now Schwinn bikes, once the dream of so many American kids--and the mount of Olympians--are indistinguishable from other brands sold alongside it in Wal Mart.  Like Roadmaster.


07 September 2015

She Was The "Alternative" To Scott Walker?

Today is Labor Day.

If I were President (as if I would want to be!), it's one of the holidays I'd keep on the calendar.  I'd get rid of all of the religious holidays because the US is a secular country (at least, it's supposed to be).  I'd pass a law that workers were entitled to two or three "floating holidays" for whatever purpose they see fit.  And the only official Federal holidays would be Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day (which I would call Remembrance Day), Independence Day, Labor Day and Veterans' Day.  (As I become more anti-war, I become more pro-veteran.)  And, perhaps, the birthdays of a few of my heroes and heroines.

OK, enough of fantasy-land.  I've just had lunch with a good friend, who happens to be the widow of a longtime union worker.  And I'm going to see another friend who is a member of a union--of adjunct faculty members in her university.


On Labor Day last year, I wrote about the strike of Schwinn metal polishers and platers that began the week after Labor Day in 1919.  As Schwinn had bought out a number of smaller bicycle manufacturers, some of which continued to sell bikes under their own names, the strike led to a widespread boycott of a number of bicycle and motorcycle makers in the US.  (In those days, the industries were much more closely related than they are now.)  I also mentioned the Schwinn strike in 1980, which is often blamed for the closure of the old South Side plant in Chicago, when in truth the facility was outdated.

Now, of course, Schwinn is not the only bicycle company (or firm in any industry) with a dark side to its labor history.  All US bicycle manufacturers, with the exception of Worksman Cycle, have outsourced most or all of their production to low-wage countries with few or no labor organizations.  Of the 1.5 million bicycles sold annually under the Trek brand, only about 10,000--or 0.06 percent of its production--come from US facilities.  And none are ever touched by union hands before they reach your local dealer.

This became an issue in last year's Wisconsin gubernatorial election.  Few contemporary American political figures so openly express their hostility toward unions as the Badger State's governor, Scott Walker, does.  One thing you have to say for the guy:  He puts his money where his mouth is.  Oh, wait, he doesn't put his money anywhere.  Let's just say--if in a dry, academic way--that his actions are consistent with his rhetoric.

This guy is running for President.  Perhaps he wouldn't be if he'd lost his gubernatorial re-election bid last year to Mary Burke.  Days before the election, it seemed entirely possible.  But now he's in the race to become the Republican candidate in next year's Presidential election. 

I am one of the last people in this world who would praise, let alone endorse or elect, him.  However, to be fair, he was not responsible for Trek's labor and business practices. Ironically, his Democratic challenger in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race was, at least partially.

Mary Burke during her 2014 gubernatorial campaign in Wisconsin



Mary Burke, as you may know, was the CEO of Trek.  Her father founded the company in the mid-1970s.  For the first few years of the company's existence, all of the frames were made in their Waterloo, Wisconsin facility.  In the early 1980s, Trek began to import frames from Japan--as Schwinn and other American bike companies did--and assemble them as bikes sold under their own name.  Those Japanese bikes were mid-level models sold by Schwinn and other companies; for Trek, they were the lowest-priced models.  Still, they were good bikes and Japanese workers, at least, were being paid fair wages and had rights to organize.

However, as the decade went on, Trek--like other American companies--began to have bikes made for them in Taiwan.  At one point, Taiwanese bikes would account for more than 80 percent of those sold in the US market.  Now that number is about 5 percent, with 94 percent coming from the country that, in the 1990s, would begin to supply Trek and other companies. I am talking, of course, about China:  a country where workers would actually have more rights than they have now if someone like Scott Walker were in charge!

(When Trek bought the Gary Fisher, Klein, LeMond and Bontrager brands during the late 1990s, Trek immediately--you guessed it--shifted the remaining US production of those companies' products to Taiwan and China.)

Now, I am not laying the blame for the bicycle industry trends I've described solely at the feet of Ms. Burke.  It must be noted, though, that as a high-ranking executive in Trek (Her family referred to her as "the brains" of the company!), she had at least some responsibility for her company's decision to move production to Taiwan and, later, China.  As Trek accounts for over a third of bicycles sold in US bicycle shops, its practices are watched and emulated in the industry. 

Also, it has been noted that Ms. Burke helped to prevent Trek's Wisconsin workers from forming a union or joining forces with another (as Schwinn's Chicago workers did with the United Auto Workers). 


To think that this Mary Burke positioned herself as an "alternative" to Scott Walker!  It's enough to bring up whatever you're eating at your Labor Day barbecue!

 

05 September 2015

Climbing Away From My Fear Of White Plains

Today I took another ride into Connecticut.  I figured--correctly--that I wouldn't encounter heavy traffic even along Boston Post Road, as Route 1 is known in Westchester County.  Most likely, folks from the Nutmeg State already took off for the weekend yesterday, or even the day before.  Also, riding to Connecticut means riding away from most of the beaches in this area, which is where most travelers are going or have gone this weekend, which includes the Monday holiday of Labor Day.



I thought about taking off for some place or another this weekend.  Now I'm glad I didn't:  The ride I took today is more emotionally relaxing and satisfying than just about any trip I could have taken on a crowded train, plane or bus.  Also, Greenwich, Mianus and Byram aren't full of tourists, and the people who stayed in town are relaxed and friendly.

This weekend, I also plan to ride again and meet a friend or two here in the city, which is strangely idyllic.  Perhaps we'll go to a museum or show, or just "do lunch."

But I digress.  I took slightly different routes through the Bronx and lower Westchester County than I had on previous rides.  I also wandered through an area of Greenwich--up a hill--I hadn't seen before.  There are houses built on stretches of land that could serve as game preserves.  ("Deer crossing" signs were everywhere.)  I stopped in a park where I was reminded that this is indeed the unofficial last weekend of summer, and the fall--the actual season as well as the autumn that includes the march of time across people's lives:




All right, I'm making more of this photo than is really there.  The park itself is a well-kept spread of lawn with a single picnic table.  I didn't want or need anything else.



Behind me, this tree stood authoritatively.  It seemed such an indignity for it to share the same ground, from which it's grown for decades (if not centuries) with a fence and a garbage can.

That tree seems like a New England tree:  It belongs where it is. Trees I see in the city, as lovely as they are, so often seem like they are where they are only at the pleasure of some land owner or agency that can evict or "retire" (I've heard the word used in that way) it to make way for something more profitable or convenient.

The ride back took me up and down more hills, past more palatial estates.  Nowhere did I find a sign one normally finds when leaving or entering a state.  I knew I had crossed back into New York State only because of a sign from the local police department--in Rye Brook--asking people to report drivers who text. 


A few miles up the road, I passed through a city I had always avoided: White Plains.  Somehow the name terrified me:  I always imagined folks even paler than I am chasing away....someone like me?  OK, maybe not me, but certainly most of the students I've had.

(For years, New Hampshire was one of two states that didn't observe Martin Luther King Day.  I actually wondered whether it had something to do with having the White Mountains.  Then I realized Arizona, the other state that didn't recognize MLK Day, had no such excuse!)




White Plains was a bit bland, though not terrible.  It has a road--Mamaroneck Road--that actually becomes rather quaint, in spite of the chain stores on it, after it passes under the highway and continues toward the town for which it's named.

The rest of the ride was as pleasant as the warm afternoon with few clouds and little humidity. Even though I pedaled about 140 kilometers, I barely broke a sweat.  But the relatively pleasant surprise of White Plains was balanced by a signal of The End of the World As We Know It:





The South Bronx is becoming SoBro?  Oh, no! 
 

01 September 2014

You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Black Beauty

Today is Labor Day.

Over the past 130 years or so, bicycles have done much to improve the mobility of--and bring pleasure to--countless working people. 

There are, however, dark chapters in the history of the cycling industry.  Now, no bicycle company has ever exerted the same degree of control over the American economy as, say, General Motors once did, or as petrol and financial services companies now lord over much of the world's economy.  Still, some titans of the two-wheel trade have been, in their own ways, as anti-worker and just plain ruthless as the captains of other industries.

One such example was Ignaz Schwinn.  A mechanical engineer by training, he emigrated from Germany to Chicago in 1890 and, with Adolph Arnold, started the company that would bear both of their names until 1967. 

When America's first bike boom--which roughly spanned the last decade of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th--went bust, Schwinn and Arnold acquired several smaller bicycle manufacturers as well as two early motorcycle makers--  Excelsior and Henderson --to create what would become the third-largest motorcycle manufacturer in the United States, trailing only Indian and Harley-Davidson. 

As is too often the case, the company's prosperity was not passed on to its workers. So, on 9 September--a week and a day after Labor Day--in 1919,  the metal polishers, buffers and platers of Schwinn and Excelsior-Henderson went on strike



What did those workers want?  A 44-hour workweek and wages of 85 cents an hour.

Unions representing other laborers, in sympathy, boycotted not only Schwinn and Excelsior-Henderson, but also other brands (such as Black Beauty and Harvard)  under which those bicycles and motorcycles were sold.  Herren Schwinn and Arnold soon felt the pinch because, even though the first American Bike Boom was a decade past, many workers were still riding bicycles to work and, sometimes, for recreation.


So what did the august leaders of the company do?  They hired lawyers and got injunctions against the unions whose members were cancelling, or not placing, orders.  They also had striking workers arrested on trumped-up charges of being strike-breakers, employed ex-cons to beat them up or to persuade them to become scabs and even had foremen shoot at the strikers.

Every labor journal of the day mentioned the strike and exhorted readers to support the strikers in any way they could, whether by standing with them physically or participating in the boycott.  From the accounts I have read, it seems that Schwinn had singularly bad relations with its workers; more than one journal said it was OK for Schwinn workers to buy other companies' bicycles and motorcycles.

Hmm...Had I known about this, would I have so badly wanted that Continental I bought when I was fourteen years old?

N.B.:  Schwinn workers also struck in the fall of 1980.  Some blame this work stoppage for the closure of the company's Chicago manufacturing facilities--which, truthfully, were no match for its foreign competitors-- a few of whom, by that time,  were making bikes sold under the Schwinn brand.



03 September 2012

Bicycle Races: A Labor Day Tradition

To many Americans, today--Labor Day--is the unofficial last day of summer.

To many American cyclists and cycling fans, Labor Day weekend marks the end of the racing season.  According to VeloNews, regional races dominate this weekend's cycling slate.  There is an omnium in St. Louis; there are stage races in, among other places, Vermont and Colorado and a variety of one-day and stage races, as well as criteriums, on courses all over the nation from Massachusetts to California.

While most of these races originated during the past thirty or so years, there are some Labor Day events that have been running for as long as bicycle races and Labor Day have been in existence.

That makes sense when you realize that bicycle racing in the United States began at roughly the same time Labor Day began to be celebrated.  On Tuesday, 5 September 1882, rhe first labor festival was celebrated in New York; within three years, other industrial centers had their own celebrations.  Oregon (Doesn't it figure?) became the first state to establish the holiday in its state constitution, and in 1894. Labor Day became a Federal holiday.

Many still consider the 1890's and the first years of the 20th Century to be the "golden age" of bicycle racing in the US. While bicycling was fashionable among the monied set (In those days, a typical bike cost about $100: about  $2700 in today's money.), prominent racers of that time typically came from the working classes and were immigrants or their children.  In fact, the first African-American sports superstar was Major Taylor, who set several world records

The connection between cycling and labor indeed ran deep: The manufacture of bicycles was one of the major industries in some of the nation's industrial centers, such as Worcester, MA; Hartford, CT; Paterson, NJ; Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis---and, of course, New York.  Not surprisingly, those cities hosted races on Labor Day as well as at other times of the year.

Even after the introduction of the automobile, large numbers of people rode bicycles to work and for recreation--and, of course, countless kids rode them to school and the local park.  The decline in adult cycling didn't begin until the automobile became a mass-market item during the 1920's.  However, bicycle racing continued its popularity, particularly among the working classes and in communities of European immigrants.  Track races, including the six-day events, filled venues such as Madison Square Garden in the 1930's; on the eve of World War II, only baseball was a more popular spectator sport than track racing.  (Interestingly, the third-most popular sport was soccer, which drew its players from the same demographic groups as bicycle racing.)

Six-day racers during the 1930's.  From Deadspin.

In another example of how the worlds of cycling and labor intersected  the six-day races actually prompted New York City and Chicago to pass laws forbidding cyclists from riding more than 12 hours a day.  Six-day racing was a dangerous sport, and the fans couldn't get enough of it.  

Even during the "dark ages" of US cycling--the two decades or so years following World War II--Labor Day races were held in a number of places across the United States, though mainly in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, and on the West Coast.  


06 September 2010

Labor Day: Cycling and the End of a Summer Romance





Today I did something I promised myself I wouldn't do this weekend:  I cycled along some beaches.  


If you've read some of my previous posts in this or my other blog, you know that I love the ocean.  However, I didn't want to deal with the crowds and traffic I expected to find today, which was Labor Day.






However, the South Shore beaches on Long Island and the Rockaways didn't have nearly the crowds I expected.  I'm sure that some people who go to the local beaches on other summer weekends were elsewhere:  out of the area, or at barbecues or other gatherings with families and friends.  But I think that the breezy and  relatively cool weather (The temperature didn't rise much past 70F along the beach areas, and didn't reach 80 in Manhattan.) probably deterred some people.  Even Coney Island, where I ended my ride, had fewer people than I anticipated.






It's hard to go to a beach at the de facto end of summer and not think of another feature of the season:  the summer romance.






I've had a couple of those, and one with whom I shared cycling, including some rides to the beach.   


The time was one summer in the mid-1990's.  That was an interesting time to be in New York:  the city was, in various ways, just beginning to transition out of the '80's. It was still early in Rudy Giuliani's long tenure as Mayor, and Times Square was in its last days before Disneyfication.  Even apart from that, one could sense that much that was familiar in the city would soon disappear and be replaced by edifices that are more glamorous, high-tech or simply tourist-friendly.  And while the city had eradicated graffiti from the subways and other public areas, at least for the time being, it was not hard to see that with all of the hip-hop that was playing, there was and would be other things pour epater la bourgeoisie--precisely because the bourgeoisie were taking over the city in all sorts of ways nobody had previously imagined.


OK, so what does that have to do with cycling and summer romance?  Well, it also seemed that around that time, more and more people were coming to the city, not only as tourists, but to jump-start careers and other parts of their lives.  One such person became my summer romance--and sometime biking partner--that year.


She had come to New York as a visiting faculty member and researcher at the New York College of Podiatric Medicine.  Eileen was a podiatrist who had been practicing in an area of rural Maine far removed from the vacationers of Bar Harbor and other resorts.  The college wanted her for the expertise she'd developed in treating foot problems in juvenile diabetics, if I recall correctly.  


To this day, I wonder what she saw in me back then.  Yes, I was in very good shape:  I was riding everywhere I couldn't fly and lifting weights.  But in New York City, there had to be thousands of men within a few years of my age who also fit that description.  She also said I was "erudite" and "charming."  Again, if that was true, I was only one of many.


During the course of one of our rides, she said she couldn't believe there was so much waterfront in New York City.  I told her that, even after living much of my life in New York, I couldn't believe how little respect New Yorkers--or policymakers, at any rate--seemed to have for it.


I also took her on some of the most strangely bucolic rides she'd ever taken:  the Wall Street area on a Sunday, for one.  And  we went on eating tours in Chinatown, Flushing, Bensonhurst (which still was mainly Italian) and other neighborhoods--on our bikes.


By Labor Day, she was back in Maine.  This is the first time in many years I've thought about her.  I probably wouldn't have thought about her if I hadn't gone off on the tangents you've read (if you've read this far) in this post.  It's not that we had an angry breakup or any other cataclysm:  We simply had the understanding that our relationship, such as it was, would continue only as long as she was in New York.  She was a good biking partner, and good company overall.  But, as far as I can tell, she was a straight woman to the core, although she did once say that one of the things she liked about me--and the very reason why we couldn't be long-term partners--was that, as she believed and I know, I am a woman at my core.


Then again, some things are meant to last only the summer.  Fortunately, cycling is not one of them, at least for me.


Finally, here's proof that one should take summer romances--and, at times, even cycling, only so seriously: