We know what
Eric Cantor thinks about Labor Day. But Eric Cantor gets to run his mouth all the time. In this election year, union members and their families had some thoughts we should be paying attention to. The daughter of an IBEW member writes that
"my father built this":
When I was in college, my dad, with pride, gave me an alabaster brick taken from his job site at the (then called) Standard Oil Building. They had just completed the work on the beautiful, stark white building. "I helped build this," he told me. "Keep it and show it to your kids someday, and remind them that their grandfather helped build this great city." It is as ludicrous for Mitt Romney to say "I built this" as it would have been for my father to take sole responsibility for creating the Amoco Building. Nobody builds anything themselves, with no help from government, from stone masons, electricians, plumbers, pipe-fitters, truck drivers, teachers, policemen, firemen. It's especially fitting to remember that on this Labor Day.
Daily Kos diarist and third-generation sheet metal worker
Todd Farally also thinks back to his father's words as he looks at the choice in this election:
We in the building trades have really hit a rough patch. I was laid off for twenty four months straight from late 2009 to late 2011, was lucky enough to work for seven and a half months and am currently laid off again. I know what it’s like to wake up feeling that all you want to do is go to work, to feel like you have a purpose, and the fear of uncertainty. But things can get much worse if we either don’t vote at all or vote for people that will work against our economic interests. And saying you’ve always voted Republican is not an excuse because you simply don’t want to face the fact that your party has turned on you. I can understand that - change is hard, but betrayal is even worse, and you have to ask yourself: What has this party said or done to deserve my vote? Speaking as a union member, I can say that the Republicans seem to say and do more and more against us and our families. As my Dad used to say, “Always vote your job, because the other guy sure as hell is.”
A fair day's wage
- Some workers at the RNC were paid below minimum wage, thanks to deductions from their paychecks for uniforms.
- Which is still more than masseuses at the "Huffington Post Oasis" were paid, which was nothing.
- Organizing the South is a tough lift for unions, as for Democrats and other progressives. But that's not to say it's not worth trying.
- An especially meaningful Labor Day for TSA workers.
State and local legislation
Miscellaneous
- North Carolina unions are offering the opportunity to hug a thug.