Labor Day, 2007

Bad news from the front lines
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Some good news from the front lines

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Oakland has both Art & Soul
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US workers work longer hours than everyone save our overtly exploited Asian counterparts, produce more wealth for our employers ($63,885 on average) than anyone, and yet the poverty rate is at 12.3% and there are 47 million without any form of health insurance, let alone optical or dental; as the NY Times reports, "Just over half of household income was concentrated in the fifth of the population with top income 2006, about the same as in 2005. Households in the lowest income quintile[1/5th], on the other hand, accounted for only 3.4 percent of the nation’s household income." So the top 20% make 50% of the nation's income, while the bottom 20% make 3.4. This leaves 46.6% to be divvied up between the remaining 60%. Can't say that sounds right to me; any of it.
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Your Labor Day beer's eco-footprint
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If you are a wage-slave, do yourself and the others you work with at your factory, warehouse, office, clinic, hotel, grocery store, department store, school, toll booth, shop, garage, parking structure, what-have-you a huge favor on Tuesday by starting to agitate for union representation. You can learn how to do it legally by reading this before you start--that is, if you don't fit these excluded catagories:

"Workers Excluded from NLRB Coverage
The NLRA does not include coverage for all workers. The Act specifically excludes from its coverage individuals who are:
--employed as agricultural laborers
--employed in the domestic service of any person or family in a home
--employed by a parent or spouse
--employed as an independent contractor
--employed as a supervisor (supervisors that have been discriminated against for refusing to violate the NLRA may be covered)
--employed by an employer subject to the Railway Labor Act, such as railroads and airlines
--employed by Federal, state, or local government
--employed by any other person who is not an employer as defined in the NLRA"
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Please remember that Labor Day is more than just the last day to BBQ before Fall rolls in or the day the beaches close.
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Ah, the Knights of Labor and their crazy 19th-century demands to end child labor, pay women equally, tax on a progressive scale, and have workers hold shares in the companies they work for. Yep, them and their dumb-ass annual parade held in September.
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PS. If you happen to already be respresented by a union and aren't sure, the company doesn't have to tell you, and the NLRB cannot tell you if you are or aren't represented, as they apparently don't keep this info on file.