sane time sane place

Labor Day- The holiday should be suspended during the Bush administration's tenure in Washington. The individuals and entities that have benefited from the current leadership are far removed from any labor. We are in an economic condition in which organized labor is needed as much as it was during the early decades of the Industrial Revolution. No, children are not working 14 hours/day in factories, but husbands and wives are holding down two or more jobs and working well over 40 hours a week, and are barely getting by. In most cases they do not have health benefits. And yet our Secretary of Labor was on NBC this weekend praising the ways the Bush administration has furthered the workers' cause. It seems that with one exception, everything is just fine as far as the "worker's" situation. The one problem is that so many American blue-collar workers need education and retraining. There is no explanation as to what "knowledge-based" employment opportunities await the newly retrained workers. Thus the American worker needs to seek education and aquisition of skills for positions that are ethereal for lack of a better word.
Organized labor conveniently shot itself in the feet during the 20th century. The exploitationpower and ties to organized crime sullied organized labor. This sordid reputation has made the rebirth of workers' groups slow. The fact that Wal-Mart can be unionized in Communist China but not in America is a telling. fact.
It would be nice to think that the people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, and those standing at the base of the ladder awaiting their chance to climb, could have some glimmer of hope for the near future. But the fact remains that an incredibly small percentage of this nation has amassed an enormous portion of the wealth pie.