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 …
Let us talk this Labor Day about slave labor in the United States. No, not the antebellum kind before the Civil War but the slavery that persisted well into the 20th century, the slavery that was integral not only to the southern economy but slaves owned by northern corporations and used to break strikes and …
Southern Gulag: How 20th Century Slave Labor Undermined the US Labor Movement Read More »
What’s the fastest growing and most heavily unionized sector of the workforce? Surprisingly, it’s professionals and technicians, 23 percent of whom belong to unions, compared to only 15 percent of the entire workforce. Why are these workers – who are supposed to be prospering in the new economy – joining unions? And why would even …
To many, the 2007 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. marked a low point for protecting women against pay discrimination in the workplace. The case held that Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff, could not hold her employer, Goodyear, accountable for pay discrimination that had occurred over many years …
Labor Day has become not just a time to for a parting celebration of summer, but for a hardy band of labor advocates to remind the public — at least those who bother to listen — of the perilous state of workers’ rights and economic security. For instance, Change to Win Chair Anna Burger announced …
If we have Mother’s Day to celebrate mothers, Father’s Day to celebrate fathers, and Valentine’s Day to celebrate lovers, it makes eminent sense to have a day—Labor Day—to celebrate the nation’s workers. Far too often the accomplishments of the nation’s workers—whether it’s producing the food we eat or protecting us from hurricanes—are ignored, instead of …
Several years ago, an upscale supermarket opened in Princeton, where I live. The store was non-union and members of the local UFCW were picketing. Not only did virtually all of my liberal Democratic neighbors cross the picket line as if it weren’t there, when I asked them about it later, they laughed at me. There …
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.
