Blogging Labor Day
Here are some quick links and excerpts from discussions about Labor Day going on around the blogs. Read and enjoy, in between stuffing your face with barbecued ribs and tossing the pigskin:
- Jesse Walker at Reason notes that Herbert Spencer, despite being painted as a poor-hater, was more pro-labor than people might expect:
In honor of Labor Day -- or just to see how far off a caricature can be -- read his surprisingly supportive statements
about trade unions and worker-owned cooperatives.
- midtowng at ProgressiveHistorians discusses the history of Labor Day , interweaving the Knights of Labor, Mother Jones, the Haymarket Riots, and Grover Cleveland:
The Knights of Labor was founded in Philadelphia in 1869 by Uriah H. Stevens and and six other tailors.
It was initially structured along the lines of a secret society in order to protect its members from company thugs. The Knights demanded an end to child and convict labor, an eight-hour workday, equal pay for women, a progressive income tax, better wages, and the cooperative employer-employee ownership of mines, factories.
more below:
- Pejman Yousefzadeh at Redstate links to an AP article with good news for American labor:
American workers continue to outstrip their counterparts in productivity terms
:
American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year.
They also get more done per hour than everyone but the Norwegians, according to a U.N. report released Monday, which said the United States "leads the world in labor productivity."
- Miss Laura at DailyKos quotes Jack Metzer's book on Labor and the important role of unions:
The labor union is an underappreciated and easily misunderstood institution... Only those who directly experience the before and after of the union can properly appreciate it for what it is and what it does.
- a full set of links and blog roundups related to Labor Day history over at george's employment blawg (h/t Volokh Conspiracy):
To one degree or another, most lawyers are on the supervisory side of the fence. Management is part of what we do. On the flip side, many of us these days are also our own clerk-typists, performing document preparation work previously done by legal secretaries.
What's everyone up to today?
Comments :
Not a happy labor day for American truckers
Mexican Truck Stampede to Hit US
A California court did not uphold an emergency stay, that would stop Mexican truckers from transporting goods on US highways.
This happened on labor day weekend no less..... a huge slap in the face to the long standing American trucking industry.
Even though a very large majority of citizens oppose this plan, under Bush leadership, he found a way around the will of the American people, to give his big business buddies what they want...... cheap labor. Mexican truckers are paid with one third of the pay that American truckers make.
The policy has been for Mexican truckers to take goods from Mexican factories to the Southern border. Then liscened truckers and inspected US trucks transported the goods to their final destination.
This plan to use cheaper labor from Mexico, to transport goods, has been defeated time and time again over the last several years.
The last vote in Congress AGAINST allowing Mexican trucks on our transportation system was 411-3. The law was circumvented by calling this search for cheap drivers an 'experimental project'.
If left in place this will destroy the American truckers, who will never be able to compete with the wages that the Mexican truck drivers earn.
China is planning on using Mexico's ports more often for its global exports.
I'm only half stupid
Thanks pico
Nice range of perspectives there.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson