A bit more on Labor Day and history, from this site and others:
More from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
More from other sites:
- U.S. Department of Labor History page
- “Labor Day in Michigan” from Michigan in Pictures
- Labor Day photographs from the Library of Congress
- Poster and song, “Look for the Union Label,” from the ILGWU site (International Ladies Garment Workers Union)
Union Label poster from the AF of L, early 1900s. Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University. Copyright Labor Arts Inc. (here under Fair Use for education)
Stumble It!
[...] posted the following to left-wing talking-head Ed Darrell’s site in observance of Labor Day: Organized labor is [...]
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I but Joe, you’re 10 years dead.
I never died says he.
I never died says he.
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there.
So will you be a Union man
Or a thug for J. H. Blair?
I don’t want your millions Mister,
I don’t want your diamond ring.
All I want is the right to live, Mister,
Give me back my job again.
The boss, he says, “I pay you as a lady;
You only got the job ’cause I can’t afford a man.
With you I keep the profits high as maybe,
You’re just a cheaper pair of hands.”
You will eat by and by,
In that beautiful land above the sky.
Work and pray, live on hay.
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
Thinking of my late Father-in-law and how he enjoyed it when I sang the old Union songs for him. He was a good guy, and I miss him.
This is the first Labor Day in years that I’m not laboring — not my choice — no job.
Organized labor is the snake that offered an apple to the labor movement. At first it seemed like a no-brainer: Use your numbers for “collective bargaining” and put an end to the “intolerable working conditions.”
Where the organized labor movement took on the trajectory of your average lawn dart, was with the organization — this unstated, but central, refrain of “You have an absolute right to work for your living if your name is on our membership rolls, and you don’t if it isn’t.”
Because of that, “union” has become something of a dirty word. And this is not entirely undeserved. The mob connections, the kneecap-busting of “scab” replacements…and worst of all, the dollars donated toward electing democrats.