If you don’t know the history of Labor Day, you should. This is a pretty good run-down of the events leading up to its founding.

Here it is, the end of summer.

There are simply attitudes toward manual labor that we can’t and shouldn’t accept, but encounter every day in subtle and not so subtle ways. They go back to the royal traditions, that set the rulers up as being part of the gods’ social set, I believe. In ancient China, the rulers did not lift a hand, and grew fingernails to ghastly lengths to show that they literally never lifted a finger. In ancient Rome, the gentry were carted about in litters by their slaves, while in India and surrounding nations, rulers’ howdahs were borne on elephants.

Skills are what Americans need to get jobs..or make jobs.

I cannot remember a more unsettling Labor Day weekend, given how many attacks are being made, as I write these words, against American workers’ rights.

Apparently, Obama decided to use his Labor Day weekend radio address not to pay tribute to all that organized labor did to create the middle class in this country, but to try to persuade voters that he is doing enough to save it.

Young people only work because they need some cash for a new iPod. So forget about raising the minimum wage. It’s not like 20-somethings are raising a family. And forget about health care reform, too. People who want health coverage have it. Young workers don’t have health coverage because they don’t want it. You know, they think they’re invincible.

If you’re a young worker, you’ve probably heard those lines more than once. And especially if you’re a young worker, you know how false they are.

We had a few young workers here at the AFL-CIO this week to talk about what it’s really like to be age 35 and younger and trying to get by. They joined us for the release of our new report: “Young Workers: A Lost Decade.”

Today is Labor Day — a day to celebrate America’s workers. Workers’ rights advocacy group American Rights at Work is taking to the airwaves with a national TV ad campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act. You can see the ad on CNN and MSNBC, and in 7 states: Alaska, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Oregon. The state-based ads will focus on educating the public on the positions’ of political leaders, and urging the public to call them to express their support for the legislation in the Senate.