The repukes want to kill Labor Day . Will we let them?

[senseandsensibility]

A couple of years ago, I was watching the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal do their little gig on MSNBC, I think it was. It was Labor Day. They were positively chortling about how no one cares about Labor Day anymore. They continued to high-five each other about how workers don't even care anymore, and how easy it is to take away their rights. They celebrated the fall of the unions, and the lack of job security of American workers. At no time did these "people" even pay lip service to caring about their fellow citizens: indeed, they were happy to see them screwed, happy to do the screwing, and proud to let everyone witness their glee.

Today is Labor Day. The chimp and his cronies want to strip all of America's workers of the basic rights that labor activists have fought and bled, YES BLED, for for decades. Soon we will have no pensions, no forty hour work week, no overtime pay, no safety regulations, no vacation at all, and no medical benefits.

Is that okay with you? I submit that "killing" Labor Day is part of the repukes agenda. And we, the progressive community, are letting them get away with it.

Where is the banner saying Happy Labor Day across the top of DU?

I will close by admitting that I am a labor activist and a union member. But my concern for workers is across the board. I support all workers, and their right to organize. Labor Day is symbolic of that, and of the brave workers who have fought for the rights we enjoy today.

Happy Labor Day. senseandsensibility

[punpirate]

1. All true...

... and worth remembering. Might start by reminding people that this renewed push to destroy labor began with Reagan--first by making an example of the air controllers and then by making May 1st "National Law and Order Day," kind of a sick joke for those who understand the importance of May 1st as a day of labor solidarity.

Cheers.

[senseandsensibility]

3. All true

And on a side note, your article on the front page rocks!

[Journeyman]

2. This battle was lost years ago, when Labor Day was set in September. . .

www.cs.uni.edu/~campbell/gened/labour.html


The observation of Labor Day on the first Monday in September is usually attributed to the Knights of Labor who held their first parade on September 5, 1882. But far more important is the Haymarket Riot/Massacre of 1886. (See also graveyards.com and kentlaw.edu). There are several interpretations of what occurred, and monuments have been constructed to both the demonstrators and the police. A reasonable summary is that the labor organizers were peacefully demonstrating for an eight hour day, an anarchist threw a bomb in to the crowd, which killed a policeman, the police killed several demonstrators and some policemen, the powers that be arrested the labor leaders.

It was in 1887 that Oregon became the first state to establish Labor Day as a holiday, which it put on the first Saturday in June. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York observed Labor Day on the first Monday in September that year. Then in 1889, the First (Paris) Congress of the Second Socialist International selected May First as a day for international celebration of the working man, no matter what day of the week it fell on. May first was chosen in commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre which occured in Chicago in 1886. In 1894, the first Monday in September was established as a federal holiday in the United States.

Why should the American working man celebrate Labor Day in September when the workers of the world are celebrating it on May first in commemoration of American Martyrs to the labor movement? This question is clarified by the fact that May first is observed unilaterally by workers (not by management), while the September holiday is enjoyed by all, perpetuating the myth that Labor and Management are both working together. The proclamation of Labor Day in September in the United States can only be interpreted as an effort to isolate the working American from his colleagues around the world, and obscure the history of what Management did to Labor in Chicago in 1886. Labor Day in the United States is better described as mocking than celebrating the working man in America.

(The immediate cause of the establishment of Labor Day as a holiday in September was to appease the working man after the Crushing of the Pullman strike in 1894.)

[senseandsensibility]

4. Great info

Thanks. Of course the powers that be having been trying to kill working people's rights for centuries. They'll stop at nothing, but we need to fight back.

[hfojvt]

13. I think they may have been demonstrating for the ten hour day

rather than the 8 hour day. No, I am wrong. I just looked it up in The American by Howard Fast. Haymarket was actually a protest meeting. McCormick and Lumber Shover's union members were on strike and at a meeting. Fast writes "The trouble came when the scabs began to leave the plant. Just picture the scene, some six thousands striking members of two unions holding an outdoor mass meeting, and within sight of them scabs leaving a plant. I saw what happened. The McCormick strikers began to move toward the plant. No one urged them; no one harangued them; they stopped listening and moved away towards the gates. Maybe they picked up some rocks; maybe they said things not nice to hear - but before they did anything, the plant police started to fire. My god, it was like a war! The strikers were unarmed, and the police stood like men on a range, pistols at arm's length, rifles too, potting, potting away.
- They say the plant called for reinforcements - that would take a little time, wouldn't it? But, within minutes, a patrol wagon filled with police dashed up, and behind them, on the double, came a detail of 200 armed men.
- Well it was the kind of sight one would see in the old country, not here. The workers dropped like men on a battlefield. When they tried to stand fast the police rushed them and clubbed them apart; when they broke and ran, the police followed them, clubbing them from the rear."

August Spies, an anarchist who was speaking at that meeting, rushed back to his newspaper the Arbeiter-Zeitung (worker's times) and wrote in like 4 inch caps WORKING MEN TO ARMS!!! and set up the meeting at Haymarket square. Just as the meeting was breaking up, hundreds of police arrived, a bomb was thrown, and again there was a melee. A dozen leaders were charged with murder, although some were not at the meeting, and eight finally went to trial - ALbert Parsons, August Spies, Michael Schwab, Sam Fielden, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Oscar Neebe, and Louis Lingg. Lingg died in custody, Fast implies he was murdered, his head blown off with dynamite (official explanation: suicide). I think Schwab and Fielden got commuted sentences, the other five were hanged on Nov. 11, 1887.

[Nobody]

14. I celebrate both

and have noticed that a lot of low wage earners are busy working today.

[CrispyQ]

5. I think they would love to kill all paid holidays,

but Labor Day being symbolic, will be the first to go. Eventually anyone who is not ultra-rich or part of the corporate elite will be no more than feudal serfs serving the corporate masters.

Our country let Pandora out of the box by granting corporations personhood status. The real pisser is that the original ruling never did grant this status! It was the erroneous notes of a court clerk that led to the birth of this mighty behemoth, corporations with personhood status, that threatens democracies around the world, the health & welfare of human beings & our very planet. Other democracies are following suit & granting personhood rights to corporations. Other human organizations, like unions, have not been granted this special status. It is wrong, pure & simple.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that corporations were put in place to SERVE THE PEOPLE, not the other way around.



Happy Labor Day to you, too, S&S. Kudos to you for fighting the good fight!

[senseandsensibility]

6. Happy Labor Day to you too!

And thanks for your informative post.:hi:

[guruoo]

15. If our own government fails to protect labor...

then workers will be forced to take
matters into their own hands.

[B Calm]

7. DU message boards on past Labor Days were filled with

great posts about labor. It's too bad the hurricane disaster has ruined Labor Day...

[senseandsensibility]

8. Well, I've only been a member for about a year and a half

But last year, my post was one of the only ones, and I had to keep kicking it myself. So I don't really buy the Katrina thing, although it does have an effect. I posted today because no one else did. Also, I would like to see a banner across the top of the home page.

I know Katrina is what people care about right now, myself included. I don't want forty or fifty labor day threads. Just one would be nice, though. Workers rights affect everyone in this country, except the independently wealthy. And Labor Day only comes once a year.

[senseandsensibility]

9. kick for the workers!

And whoever nominated my post, you lovely person, thanks on behalf of the workers!:-)

[B Calm]

11. I nominated it, and if I could I would vote again.

[senseandsensibility]

22. Thank you, again

B Calm!:) Looks like some others have followed your lead, and we now have a Labor Day thread on the Greatest page! :toast:

[StellaBlue]

10. Agreed

:kick:

:yourock:

[tocqueville]

12. Labor day is already dead in the US

Real labor day is May 1st. The rest is a pathetic parody.

Besides on Labor day in the rest of the world, unions go out on the streets to present their demands.

there won't be any real labor day in the US until you take back May the 1st

[spuddonna]

16. I think the only reason there's no Happy Labor Day across the

top of DU is because thousands of poor people are still struggling in NO and Miss. today...

But I totally agree, the Neo-cons even more than the Repugs before them, are trying to dismantle all of the work-place freedoms we're scratched and fought for so hard for. Walmart is breaking child-labor laws; IT contractors are hired for a year, then fired and re-hired so they don't need to be given bennies... no overtime (we'll 'comp' you, but then you can never use the time...)

They'd love to see Labor Day be the first vacation to go. It would be a sweet victory for corporations everywhere...

[senseandsensibility]

23. Last year

DU did not have a banner either, so I don't think it's Katrina. At least that is my best memory, and I am very "into" these things. I remember being disappointed with the lack of attention to Labor Day a year ago. I don't think there was a banner, but if someone knows differently, please correct me.

[Hubert Flottz]

17. Kick!

I voted for your thread. I just received my 30 year pin from my local about a week ago! I have posted a lot of information about the formation of the unions on DU. Most people don't know the hows and whys the unions created the middle class! The GOP wants to wipe out the middle class and have nothing but the dirt poor and the filthy rich, like it was before the unions and the "New Deal". Before the New Deal working people only had the raw deal.

One of the first things Hitler did, once he gained Absolute power in Germany, was outlaw the unions. The right wing may say they're not fascists, but it's a God Damned Lie! The robber barons have never stopped fighting and undermining the workers in America! Look how the GOP has fought minimum wage over the years! * The GOP may not be Nazis, but they are exactly LIKE NAZIS!

[hfojvt]

19. before the new deal

most people were farmers. Not necessarily rich, but not really poor either. With farming, a man with his own land had some control over his prosperity, weather and markets permitting. At least he had control over putting food on the table. My great-great grandparents built their own houses.

Now it is more about riding a job train. The connection between work and standard of living is fuzzy. The old independence was traded away for a new Ford, but many times farming can be long, hard, nasty, dangerous work.

[senseandsensibility]

24. Amen, brother!

And thanks for your post.:)

[nashville_brook]

18. google usually has commemorative banners... not for labor day

[hfojvt]

20. the person who desgins the banners

must have taken the day off. :evilgrin:

[Chicago Democrat]

21. RE-CALANDAR Labor Day to its proper day: MAY 1

The National strike of the 1880s on May 1. The Haymarket riots. ALL helped to start the international labor movement that gave us the 8 hour day and the Democratic Party.(Also Communism and Socialism, but SO WHAT?!~)


Teach our children about the past..


Restore May Day! the ORIGINAL LABOR DAY..


Sept 1 is a Cold war relic designed to erase memory.

[B Calm]

25. kicking for labor day / cartoon attached

[senseandsensibility]

26. Great cartoon

Another kick!

[nicknameless]

27. "A holiday to celebrate the peons? Guffaw!"

[senseandsensibility]

28. Have you noticed how the corporate media just ignores

the whole thing? No mention whatsover. That alone should tell people that Labor Day is a good, good thing.

[nicknameless]

32. They're not on the side of the people.

When will MSM ever tell us the truth ... over our (the people's) airwaves that they rent for so very little?

[Az_lefty]

29. Local school is calling this "Patriots Day"...

:puke:

[senseandsensibility]

30. Someone mentioned this on a thread yesterday

But it was a church that was doing it. I don't get it. Why are they changing the name of a legal holiday? Is this a public school? I don't think they can do that.

[struggle4progress]

31. OK by me. I'd rather celebrate May Day instead.

...
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old ...

http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/solid.html