Thanks, BT
Happy Labor Day.

FunnyWheelieDiva

Labor day is supposed to celebrate what the workers have won! Instead it has become a day of Big Sales by Big Companies trying to get our hard earned money!!
Fuck big business!!@-

BO is speaking to the AFL-CIO meeting in Ohio.. So far great speech!

“Lemme say a few things about health care. . . every debate at sometime comes to an end. . . it’s time to act. . .a cap on expenses. . . no pre-existing, exchange, public option”!

The most informative site that I’ve come across for info on workers rights and the corporations who collude against them is:

American Rights at Work – HomeAug 26, 2009 … American Rights at Work is a nonprofit advocacy organization whose mission is to support workers’ rights to a free choice and a fair chance …
http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/ – Cached – Similar

The info on the efforts by the Chamber of Commerce to undermine worker’s wages and rights is worth the trip alone,especially the profiles of their hired guns,er, lobbyists like Dr. Evil,Richard Berman.

A treasure trove of info,continously updated.

This is funny:

A statement was released in which they swore to “protect the skilled labor of America from being reduced to beggary and to sustain the standard of American workmanship and skill.”

Today the average regional airline First Officer with a family can not afford to do his or her job without their spouse having a second job, or getting food stamps. And those are FOs who work for union airlines.

In the airlines we are unfortunately subject to the Railway Labor Act, (the RLA) which allows our companies to make us go to arbitration and mediation before allowing us to strike for things like better wages and working conditions. As you can imagine, the rich guys running the airlines can drag out arbitration and mediation eternally with smart lawyers paid well.

We are thusly reduced to “beggary” at the entry level in our jobs, and not allowed to use the remedies available to every other union member. I do not see ALPA (our union) or the AFL-CIO doing much about it on this labor day, and wish that it were different.

[/grumpiness off]

Labor Day’s nothing more than an attempt to separate American workers from their fellow workers in the labor movement around the world who celebrate a day of solidarity on May 1.

and many of them are going back to work under paid and uninsured, but I digress. My question is how removed from reality are these right wing wackos when they do not think that the insurance industry is making obscene profits? Case in point, George Will in this video.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2815

Fired up!

I found a labor day story at the Daily Beast of all places. I am shocked that the next Florida Senator gives away American jobs. But, these mexicans do work cheaper and work longer hours so to some that makes it AOK.

On Thursday, CBS4 News in Miami reported that LeMieux’s law firm “was responsible for securing dozens of visas for foreign workers to enter the country and help construct the St. Regis hotel and condominiums in Bal Harbour—a move that left American sheet metal workers out of a job.” Not exactly the kind of headline a new senator—let alone his ambitious patron—is looking for.

LeMieux resigned as Crist’s chief of staff a year ago, returning to Gunster Yoakley, his old law firm, where he became chairman. The Florida-based firm touts as part of its practice the ability to assist firms in hiring foreign workers to replace American laborers in the U.S. The law firm was hired by CYVSA International, a Mexico City-based company which had been selected to install heating and air conditioning ducts at the St. Regis. The company wanted to clear a path for its employees to enter the U.S.

According to CBS4 News, the foreign workers “were paid substantially less than the American sheet metal workers would be paid.” The station also reported that the Mexican workers maintained they were asked to work overtime without being compensated.

AS usual the republicans lead the race to the bottom for American Workers! How the fuck can any worker support the Republicans is way beyond me.

Thanks, BT.

Bluetoe2 – Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use it, as BT has done, to remind ourselves of the history of the labor movement in this country, and, especially, of union history.

btw, Pres. speech over; it was a nice speech – if I thought he was going to follow up on what he said, I’d be fired up, too. Not too optimistic, but not quite in despair yet – it ain’t over til it’s over.

and further, have you all seen this – more info on the greatest medical care system in the world….

Re:Republicans

I cross posted this earlier over at dakine’s diary about Labor Day:

Robert Kuttner wrote a terrific book a couple of years ago about the Squandering of America,and the info was prescient.

Joe Palermo wrote a piece about Kuttner’s book entitled”Republican Class Warfare”.

This is the second Labor Day that I go back and reread it.

Perhaps you will choose to read it,too.

Joseph A. Palermo: Republican “Class Warfare”Jan 23, 2008 … With the current economic meltdown millions of Americans might be starting to wake up to the new reality brought on by years of unbridled …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/……..82904.html – Cached – Simila

“After all, Labor Day and what it represents is antithetical to everything they believe.”

Sure, because if there is anything we libertarians hate, its people who work.

Thanks for the post, Blue Texan

But the origins of Labor Day are about organized labor, not just “people who work.”

Don’t know many libertarians that like unions. Don’t know many union members that are libertarians.

Funny that.

Quote: “A modest proposal: free market conservatives and libertarians should work normal hours today. After all, Labor Day and what it represents is antithetical to everything they believe.”

The very concept of ‘normal hours’ comes from the labor movement. Those who oppose the labor movement should be forced to work 20 hours today. Four hours sleep is enough for any Captain Of Industry.

In southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia, the Peabody Coal Co. had company towns with company houses – many are still standing today – that they rented to the miners and company stores where they could buy food and clothing. The first few months someone lived in the house things went along fine, then Peabody jacked up the rent without telling them and started a tab. Everything in the store also secretly became more expensive, also on the tab. By the end of the first year folks were so in debt to Peabody they couldn’t quit. Ever. As the years went by the debt grew and grew. If they tried to leave they were jailed as thieves and debtors and their families thrown to the mercies of the brutal winters.

I knew a woman who lived in her family home all her life. Sixty years later she still couldn’t bring herself to say bad things about the corporation that killed her father with black lung or her mother from heartbreak. I think she was afraid someone might tell.

Exactly. Article linked above had this:

But what have labor unions done for America since 1894? Here is a brief list of benefits that have been brought to you by the efforts of organized labor:

• Health benefits

• Unemployment insurance

• Workers compensation

• Safer jobsites

• 40-hour work weeks and eight-hour days

• Grievance and arbitration procedures

• Overtime pay

• Social Security

• Minimum wage

• Public education

• Civil and voting rights

• Pension plans

• Paid vacations and holidays

Ayn Rand weeps.

Citizen Raven:

Yep, Brother Freebird, time ta strap it up and take it to ‘em…but does Brother Barak have the stones?

Text of POTUS’ Labor Day Speech in Cincinnati

19 May 1920
The Battle of Matewan. Despite efforts by police chief (and former miner) Sid Hatfield and Mayor C. Testerman to protect miners from interference in their union drive in Matewan, West Virginia, Baldwin-Felts detectives hired by the local mining company and thirteen of the company’s managers arrived to evict miners and their families from the Stone Mountain Mine camp. A gun battle ensued, resulting in the deaths of 7 detectives, Mayor Testerman, and 2 miners. Baldwin-Felts detectives assasinated Sid Hatfield 15 months later, sparking off an armed rebellion of 10,000 West Virginia coal miners at “The Battle of Blair Mountain,” dubbed “the largest insurrection this country has had since the Civil War” by The Battle of Matewan Home Page.
http://www.lutins.org/labor.html

and thanks for the history and perspective Blue Texan -

Labor history was our catechism growing up – indulge me a little crowin’ – my great grandfather came down to Sacramento from far northern Cali to join the boycotters – it’s how our family wound up in the Central Valley

Sixteen Tons

Beats me, I’ve never been in his position.

Any Republican who does not propose a ban on Labor Day immediately is a hypocrite. This would be a great opportunity for Sarah Palin to rise up even farther.

She, Party Leader, should fill the vacuum – proposing a new Holiday in keeping with the Republican Spirit of Screw You, I’ve Got Mine. In honor of Corporate Officers and Members of the Board (only they would get the day off): “Pick Yourselves Up By Your Own Bootstraps” Day.

Oh, yeah, Tennessee Ernie – Hello, pea pickers!

That’s exactly it.

I just threw Obama under the bus, He speaks weasel words and I will be pleasantly surprised if we even get a strong public option instead of single payer health care we should have. And he will call it a victory-and we the people have to swallow this bullshit.

What should happen now is massive protest by the left.
Strikes a day at a time where we all call in sick and refuse to buy anything
I don’t know how to organize this but we are getting nowhere now and at the mercy of a quaking bunch of cowardly lions.

Not sorry for the snark and frankly I don’t give a rats ass.

Thanks Gitchee and I will read it… bit late responding but… I blame the brunch I had to make for the family….

Great stioy of how Corproate America has been trying to have defacto SLAVERY!!

Very good song to illustrate the miners plight dakiene!! I have listen to that song thousands of time since I was a wee one!

Employers kept Americans’ working hours near a record low in August, signaling that economic growth is poised to reward companies with added profits while postponing any recovery in the job market.

The average workweek held at 33.1 hours, six minutes from the 33 hours in June that was the lowest since records began in 1964, the Labor Department said yesterday.

– Bloomberg, “U.S. Recovery Leaving Workers Jobless May Spur Company Profits ,” 9/5/09.

U.S. Recovery Leaving Workers Jobless May Spur Company Profits …Sep 5, 2009 … Employers kept Americans’ working hours near a record low in August, signaling that economic growth is poised to reward companies with added …
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pi…..sid… – Similar

HayMarket, Ludlow CO. SF Water Front, Republic Windows, Public Workers everywhere today. PATCO, Miracle on the Hudson, the Mensch of Maldon Mills, River Rouge, . . . .Labor, the ONLY INSTITUTION between the corporate over lords and decency.
Unless and until the Employee Free Choice Act passes, nothing will level the playing field where workers increase productivity but are denied the rewards of their labor.

Anybody here have an answer for this question – isn’t paying by “piecework” illegal? Does FLSA cover this?

See Barbara’s post at 41 here:
http://christyhardinsmith.fire…..e/#comment

I really thought there was, pardon the expression, a law against that.
Anybody know?

Isn’t the GOP a union sort of?

They pay dues, pay homage, vote on their issues, gain power with group association.

But I guess a Union is NO Party………………! It is alot of work.