The first “labor day” celebration was a march—10,000 workers took an unpaid day off to demonstrate in New York’s Union Square in 1882 to promote the union cause. Now, the federal holiday is supposed to be a day of paying tribute to the American worker and recognizing the contributions that unions have made to American prosperity. It …
By Next Labor Day, Let’s Have Guaranteed Paid Sick Leave Read More »
CEO = rock star. Okay, it’s not as bad as it was in the ‘80’s when even non-business magazines had smiling CEOs on the cover, but I still think most of us want our CEO to have a certain amount of star quality. Call it the Trumpification of the corporate world. Who would you rather …
The Labor Day holiday implies adults in the workforce, but this day involves younger generations, too. Witness the millions of parents, and their kids, getting used to quickly changing schedules as the latter group goes back to school. It’s fitting, then, that this post start off as a generational footnote to a post I wrote …
Three New Studies Link Employee Engagement to Achieving Key Workplace Metrics Read More »
Every year nearly 6,000 American workers are killed on the job and many more are bilked out of an estimated $19 billion in wages by their employers. Unfortunately, workers do not have the protections they need and deserve because President Bush’s Department of Labor has failed to effectively police low-road employers, and unions—which give workers …
Today was the conclusion of the first week of Take Back Labor Day, a Today’s Workplace blog project which invited many of the best and brightest in the workplace community to write about the continuing significance of Labor Day in these troubled times for workers. And what a week it was! By the end of …
Many of us will have seen the neat educational drawing from the 1950’s: “eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for leisure” for a balanced life. It feels so quaint, and speaks to a phantom work-family life that is reality for few Americans. Over 50 years ago most women did not work …
Flexibility at Work: Asking it of our Leaders and Ourselves Read More »
Amid all the hype of political conventions, analysis of the Republican VP pick and Labor Day celebrations for the rest of the country, the Bush Administration will launch an attack on the nation’s farmworkers. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, at any moment, will announce extensive changes to the …
September 1 is Labor Day — a day to celebrate America’s workers. Our country has celebrated Labor Day for more than a century as an official national holiday, a day to honor those who work to build America. Unfortunately there hasn’t been much to celebrate for Labor Day lately; the middle class is being gutted, …
On Labor Day, a New TV Campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act Read More »
It’s easy to forget the historic meaning of Labor Day, lost as it is in the haze of BBQ smoke, back-to-school sales and that last long weekend of summer’s vacation season. In the diminished ranks of organized labor, now down to 8% of the working population, the holiday, once a celebration of victory over corporate …
Labor Day puts an exclamation point at the end of summer, and sounds the traditional starting bell for our election campaigns. And it is the one day of the year that honors working people – those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold,” in the words of one 19th …
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
