No, you’re not going to drive the trucks on the NAFTA Superhighway! Nor are you going to produce the products hauled or provide the services offered, or even the solutions required!

That is because you were not involved in conceptualizing the NAFTA Proposal, or designing the Security and Prosperity Partnership System, or drafting the North American Union Constitution.

And that is because you were asleep at the wheel of your own truck! Known as the U.S. Constitution, it empowered “We the People” as policy-makers in this uniquely participative and democratic nation. When We the People were shunted aside, you did not even protest. Indeed, you didn’t even know. To be sure, you weren’t even “in the loop.” You didn’t heed Jefferson’s admonition: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Whoever does not heed the warning loses his or her freedom.

No, you played into the hands of the totalitarian dictators who shunted you aside: “I don’t have to listen to you.”

To be sure, you fulfilled the condemnation of the most tyrannical of all dictators, Adolph Hitler: “What luck it is for rulers that men do not think.”

“You do not think! That is your problem. You can never grow up if you do not learn to think!”

The New Way

To be a child in a “Labor Family” is to carry on the ethic of concern for your fellow neighbors, workers, and citizens. I am such a son. I have helped in the birth of “The New Way:” from Labor to Human Resources to Human Capital:

• Labor emphasizing investments of Physical Energy to produce products and build;
• Human Resources emphasizing interpersonal investment of Emotional Energy to provide services and build teams;
• Human Capital emphasizing intellectual investments of Intellectual Energy to generate designs and resolve problems.

In Figure 3, we may view the building of proactive labor union objectives. As may be noted, the functions are to become Empathizing Relators, Enterprising Workers, and Enlightened Citizens.

In order to accomplish these Human Processing Functions, we must become involved in designing and implementing systems that Educate and Empower our Human Capital.

We may label these Human Processing Functions, “The New 3Es.” They will empower Labor with all its worthy objectives to move forward in the growth curve, to once again assume a position of leadership.

Figure 3. Proactive Labor Union Objectives

Such learning, training, and thinking skills would place the American Labor Movement in a place of leadership in the world marketplace (See Figure 4). As may be viewed, the Labor Values may not only exceed Globalization Requirements, but drive World Growth.

Figure 4. World Growth Movement to Incorporate Labor Values
and Globalization Requirements

As an adult in the Labor Family, I offer my gift to you. I am my father’s legacy. He taught me to care. He trained me to help on those many missions of justice where I accompanied him.

I know his words right now. From his grave, he would say:

“Don’t ask for Protectionism!”

“Demand Skills for Thinking!”

Happy Labor Day!

“Hoch soll sie leben!”