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20 Comments so far
Show AllIf it were not so true it would be funny and even the pretense of trickle down is gone. Tony
Whatever might trickle down is likley to be yellow.
Yet to come is the best time of the year(s):
The Holidays.
The Games.
The January Yellow Sales.
How about people waking up to the fact that those "evil unions" and the strikes they held were what got the 40 hour week, 8 hour day, paid sick leave and all those other things which are now going the way of the dinosaur. This Labor Day holiday was not meant as just another Monday off to go shopping at the big sales!
The Labor Movement...the people who gave you the weekend.
the above says it all. i teach american history at a community college, and am constantly appalled at working class students who say that unions are stronger than management so we don't need them anymore; social darwinism is a good thing for workers because it cuts out the lazy people who take advantage of the system. why do we as the majority of the country, middle and working class, support policies that only reinforce the power of the elite?
It's the theme television was built on.
They are so brainwashed that when they still can't find a job and are living under a bridge three years after graduating they will blame unions rather than banksters.
I hear your observations a lot regarding younger workers. It is almost as if they are positively proud to be slaves and attack anyone who would make their lives easier.
Perhaps they believe that we socialist old-timers are out to prevent them from joining the 2%. It does not seem at all abnormal to them that there should be so darn many rungs on the ladder between that 2% and the other 98.
I mentor civil engineering students at a university where the only graduates getting jobs during the past two years are ROTC students...they deploy to Ir-Af-Pak within six months of graduation.
Three years ago every student had two or more job offers six months before graduating.
The 2-weeks paid vacation part is a bit off.
I suspect most US workers dare not take more than one week off in the summer for fear of getting fired. Then again, I guess that's what the "trade them in for sick days" is about. When I last worked for a capitalist boss we only got 5 days sick leave per year - and it couldn't be carried over to the next year.
I work full time, the company I work for has NO sick days
Also, there is NO pension plan, NO 401K plan
as well as NO health care, NO dental care, NO prescription drug plan, NO vision care, NO life insurance, and below market pay scale.
pay raise?
forgedda about it, if anything, I'm waiting for them to cut my wages to minimum rage.
And this is in a health care field
If I knew of a better job, I'd be there.
your lucky, not only does my employer not give sick days, even with a doctor's note, any days taken off sick count against your attendance, too many days sick, even with doctor's note's and you are fired. And this for a company that exists entirely off government grants under the Americans with Disabilities act.
"Count against you attendance"? Like a 6th grade classroom? And these days are taken off are without pay?
What has the US workplace sunk to?
If the company is receiving any federal money for the performance of a contract, I would think the Hatch Act would apply. This means, by law, you are supposed to be receiving "prevailing wage" and benefits - this typically means union wage and benefits.
For comparison, I now have banked about 110 days sick leave in my federal government job. Some co workers with chronic or terminal illnesses have used them all and were no doubt thankful for it.
welcome to the consumer society.
costs only pennies.
all of them.
People need to look at the bright side: hasn't slavery gotten so much better since 1865?
We're even allowed to take days off here and there!!
Yes, From 1865 until some time in the 1970s, it got a lot better. As soon as Regan took office, the pendulum began to swing back the other way. It's still picking up speed. Be careful it doesn't knock you right out of the picture.
You laugh about "slavery," but there are actual slaves living and working on farms in the U.S.A. I'm talking about people who are chained to their beds at night, and guarded by men with shotguns while they work in the fields to prevent them from running away. There aren't many of them, and their status as slaves is not officially recognized by the Law, but government officials in the places where it happens are happy enough to look the other way.
The banksters' goal is a world with 2 million billionaires, no middle class, and six billion slaves.
Labor Day: not really that much of a holiday for the unemployed.