Darrel Good Sep 11 USDA Report Reaction

This morning (Friday) USDA updated crop production numbers for corn and soybeans. Todd Gleason discussed the report with University of Illinois Agricultural Economist Darrel Good.

$100,000,000 of Blender Pumps for 21 States

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture held nothing back on the University of Illinois campus this morning (Thursday Sept 10) when he talked about bio fuels and blender pumps for 21 states.

2016 Cash Rents May Need to Drop $100

Farm income this year is going to be dramatically lower than in the past. Next year doesn’t look any better even on highly productive central Illinois soils. Todd Gleason reports farmers must cut costs to survive, and that cash rents may need to come down by as much as one-hundred-dollars per acre.

Labor Day (First Monday in September)

I’m Todd Gleason for University of Illinois Extension with a history of Labor Day in the United States. It’s adapted from a story found on the United States Embassy to Sweden’s website.

Eleven-year-old Peter McGuire sold papers on the street in New York City. He shined shoes and cleaned stores and later ran errands. It was 1863 and his father, a poor Irish immigrant, had just enlisted to fight in the Civil War. Peter had to help support his mother and six brothers and sisters.

Many immigrants settled in New York City in the nineteenth century. They found that living conditions were not as wonderful as they had dreamed. Often there were six families crowded into a house made for one family. Thousands of children had to go to work. Working conditions were even worse. Immigrant men, women and children worked in factories for ten to twelve hours a day, stopping only for a short time to eat. They came to work even if they were tired or sick because if they didn’t, they might be fired. Thousands of people were waiting to take their places.

When Peter was 17, he began an apprenticeship in a piano shop. This job was better than his others, for he was learning a trade, but he still worked long hours with low pay. At night he went to meetings and classes in economics and social issues of the day. One of the main issues of concern pertained to labor conditions. Workers were tired of long hours, low pay and uncertain jobs. They spoke of organizing themselves into a union of laborers to improve their working conditions. In the spring of 1872, Peter McGuire and 100,000 workers went on strike and marched through the streets, demanding a decrease in the long working day.

This event convinced Peter that an organized labor movement was important for the future of workers’ rights. He spent the next year speaking to crowds of workers and unemployed people, lobbying the city government for jobs and relief money. It was not an easy road for Peter McGuire. He became known as a “disturber of the public peace.” The city government ignored his demands. Peter himself could not find a job in his trade. He began to travel up and down the east coast to speak to laborers about unionizing. In 1881, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and began to organize carpenters there. He organized a convention of carpenters in Chicago, and it was there that a national union of carpenters was founded. He became General Secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

The idea of organizing workers according to their trades spread around the country. Factory workers, dock workers and toolmakers all began to demand and get their rights to an eight-hour workday, a secure job and a future in their trades. Peter McGuire and laborers in other cities planned a holiday for workers on the first Monday in September, halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving Day.  On September 5, 1882 the first Labor Day parade was held in New York City.