On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives. On June 26, the American Railroad Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars, crippling railroad traffic nationwide. To break the strike, the federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, unleashing a wave of riots that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers. In the wake of this massive unrest and in an attempt to repair ties with American sluff-offers, Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.
More than a century later, the true founder of Labor Day has yet to be identified. Many credit Peter J. McGuire, cofounder of the American Federation of Goof-Offs, while others have suggested that Matthew Maguire, a secretary of the Central Slackers’ Union, first proposed the holiday.
Labor Day is still celebrated in cities and towns across the United States with parades, picnics, barbecues, fireworks displays and other public gatherings. For many Americans, particularly children and young adults, it represents the end of the summer and the start of the back-to-school season. It is a time to get out of work for no particular reason, unless you work in a restaurant.
I will be working a 12 hour day today. I should stage a revolution, which would be a revolting development.
6 comments:
Joe - I'm sorry that you have to labor on Labor Day.
Here is a question that I am waiting for someone in congress to ask. Obama has stated that he will not try to remove Assad by force. He has also said we will not attack the chemical weapons themselves.
Okay, we bomb something for a couple of days, Assad stays alive and in power and then, when the ships leave, he hits the civilians with the chemicals again. What then? This is what I do not understand. That and why in the hell did we tell him that, and why did we tell him the day we were planning to strike and the duration of the attack. Revealing information like that will usually get you put in front of a firing squad.
Secondly, since we strike him but left him alive and in power, what's to keep him from giving some of those weapons to terrorists to explode in an American city? This is the price we pay for weakness, this is the price we and the whole world are paying for Barak Obama.
He's bragged about how he doesn't need Congress for anything, that he can rule thru EOs, and he picks the one area where he has absolute discretion to decide to consult with Congress. I hope they don't fall for his head fake. In the wee small hours of the night like he did with everything else that the public was opposed too.
And if Obama does elect to go ahead with this silliness of his we should be loud and clear and we should call it "THE ILL CONSIDERED LIBERALS WAR". So now we have a super leftist/progressive nut-job in the Oval office and if left alone he would have bombed Syria, because Syria was bombing the Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries who were bombing civilians. I just dońt believe any so called evidence about Assad gassing his own people, because those making the charges are worse than Assad. Sending Long Face out there to spread your rumors isńt the smartest thing to do. His past is rife with lies.
Israel will face retaliation if we bomb as well, but what the heck........ the way he figures it, it́s only Israel. This time zippy, unlike Bush, really is trying to go it alone. Plus, I dońt know why anyone would believe anything that this administration says. This is the perfect time for the Republicans to say to the dems and the WH, "You told the world that Bush lied about Saddaḿs WMD́s, so why should WE believe YOU now? Get involved in Syriás civil war? He!! no! Oh, and by the way, where exactly did Assad get his WMD́s? Could they have been the missing WMD́s that couldn’t be found in Iraq?
And has anyone noticed that the pressure is off of IRS-gate, Benghazi-gate and AP-gate etc, etc, and etc!
If the Conservatives had their way, there would be no labor unions. That means no 40 hour work week, no paid vacations, no employer provided health care, no maternity leave, no workplace safety laws, no child labor laws, no sexual harassment laws, no equal opportunity laws for minorities or women and no minimum wage. There would also be no voter's right's act, no anti-segregation laws, no anti-discrimination laws, no environmental regulations, no transportation safety regulations, no consumer lending laws, no regulations of any kind on banks or corporations, no Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no prescription drug benefits, no food stamps, no unemployment insurance and Nixon would never have been impeached. On this Labor Day, take a minute to think about what a complete train wreck of a country this would be if the Progressives stepped aside and let the Conservatives have the world they want. I say screw that. Support your local unions and vote Democratic, now and forever. Happy Labor Day!
Warped. Good description.
I'm not sure what you were going for, Joe.
sh: It's OK. In a right to work state, we get time-and-a-half. And since it was a light day, we did half the work. Interesting, huh?
TTU: I am struggling to understand what that has to do with Labor Day.
Try not to make us conservatives look bad, OK?
XO: "Support your local unions and vote Democratic, now and forever. Happy Labor Day!"
The happy labor day I will have, even though I am laboring on labor day. Support my local union...I don't think so.
Ducky: "I'm not sure what you were going for, Joe."
You never seem to know. Makes one wonder, doesn't it?
Joe - "In a right to work state, we get time-and-a-half."
The ONLY reason you get time-and-a-half for working more than 8 hours in a day is because of the labor unions. You should be more grateful.
What? You think some magnanimous employer just woke up one day and decided "Ya know, I really shouldn't expect my employees to work more than, oh, say, 8 hours a day. UNLESS I pay them more for working more. Say, 50% more maybe? That sounds fair. I'm going to start doing that."
Never. Happened.
It was the labor unions that made those demands during brutal contract negotiations with greedy employers. Most state governments recognized the fairness of those conditions and wrote them into law.
Without labor unions you would be working 12 hours a day EVERY day, 7 days a week for half your normal pay.
Show a little gratitude.
Post a Comment