Jenny Marshall and Randy Bryce-by Jenny Marshall,candidate for Congress (NC-05)Labor Day: the one Monday of the year in which most American workers can count on a day off. On Labor Day, so many of us stay home from work only to find ourselves muddling through whatever at-home tasks we’ve been avoiding for a while. But Labor Day has its roots in something more powerful than that.
-by NoahHappy Labor Day Weekend to all DWT readers. The American Labor Movement has given us, among other things, a 40 hour work week, a minimum wage, lunch breaks, pay for working overtime, paid vacations, the weekend, safety regulations... all things that Americans died for on picket lines and battlefields, and all things that Republicans hate and continue to fight against.
Just as we prepare for the Labor Day weekend, Guardian reporter Ed Pilkington exposes a plot by a right-wing alliance to "defund and defang" the American union movement. That's hardly new but after years of whittling down the union movement, the conservatives see an opportunity for a knock out blow.
Workers take part in a May Day march to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange building on Monday, May 1, 2017. A speech by President Jacob Zuma to workers at a rally was cancelled in Bloemfontein as Zuma was heckled by some members during the gathering singing that he should step down. (AP/Denis Farrell)
Workers and activists marked May Day around the world Monday with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions.
-by Dorothy ReikI was on a tear on Labor Day-- no mention of workers or unions anywhere, except of course in the Labor Day Sale ads-- not in the NYTimes or the LATimes! Not on TV! And then I was told that today is about "workers not unions"! That is the problem I think! I was a union member once-- UTLA-- and I am proud to say my very first venture into "klng making" there resulted in Wayne Johnson's presidency.
Chances are you've gotten Labor Day messages from politicians all day today. Even Democrats who devote their entire careers to super-serving the interests of Wall Street, like Florida New Dem Patrick Murphy (a member of the House Financial Services Committee, where no Republican ever outdoes him in his commitment to fellating the banksters), felt obligated to make some noises about the dignity of labor.
No doubt Labor Day is about barbecuing for many people… or an extra day off from work that can be spent with friends and family or in blissful solitude. But this morning, in his weekly address, Presdient Obama chose to discuss the minimum wage, particularly since Mitch McConnell had just prostrated himself before the Koch brothers and some equally heinous billionaires and viewed he would never allow an increase in the minimum wage to even come up for a vote if he wins reelection.
The sainted Ronald Reagan bequeathed Americans the right to revel in their ignorance, bigotry, and savagery even as they were being so carefully lined up in the bent-over position."What [William Lazonick] has uncovered is a shift in corporate conduct that transformed the U.S. economy -- for the worse. From the end of World War II through the late 1970s, he writes, major U.S.
Which Republican said this?(For the answer, see E. J. Dionne Jr. below)"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
