Smart leftie Nathan Newman has started a group blog on labor movement issues, at www.laborblog.org. While I’m sure WoC’s more libertarian audience may find some things to disagree with, I’ll suggest that a lively debate about how to structure policy to make the lives of the middle 60% of the income curve better is probably a darn good thing.
Historic footnote: the US is somewhat unique in observing Labor Day on the first Monday in September. Most of the rest of the word observes May 1, though, interestingly enough, the origin of that holiday is from US history — the May 1, 1886 strike in Chicago, which led to police crackdowns on strikers and then to the May 4 Haymarket incident (demonstration against police brutality or rioters’ attack on police). A bomb went off in police ranks; 8 killed; trial of leading anarchists led to the hanging of 4 of them.
The US observance of Labor Day seems to predate that, apparently beginning in 1882.
FWIW.
They want the US labor structure to be more like France.
But there are at least a hundred good reasons why that would be disastrous, for the US and for the entire world. Productivity is one reason.
If the US became as unproductive as France, the entire world would go into a deep recession, because the rest of the world’s economies depend on a healthy, productive US economy.
Orrin Judd has posted an eminently readable, and debatable, but not to me, thought on labor.
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/015552.html
Said post links to the TownHall essay:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/printpg20040906.shtml
Even tho’ only two comments here, in order to not overburden comments in general I have, with great difficulty, not posted even one excerpt.
Mike