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Jim Hightower posts a brief history of Labor Day.

The First Labor Day. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

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The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership - the American worker.

Below: Greg Palast commenting on the "Son King's"** Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao's announced beheading of time-and-a-half overtime pay requirements.

Nevertheless, workers getting their pay snipped shouldn't complain, because they will all be receiving promotions. These employees will be re-classified as managers exempt from the law. The change is promoted by the National Council of Chain Restaurants. You've met these 'managers' - they're the ones in the beanies and aprons whose management decisions are, "Hold the lettuce on that."

My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the aircraft carrier.

Full article here: The Grinch That Stole Labor Day

** For "Son King" origin, see Bruce Webb's comment posted at Whiskey Bar

"Is Labor on the Edge of a New Upsurge?" by Dan Clawson... writing for Labor Notes.

If you look at labor history, the U.S. labor movement hasn't grown slowly, bit by bit, year after year. Most of the time the movement is losing ground. But once in a while there is a sudden burst of growth. The number of members shoots up, and labor's power increases even faster. For example, from 1933 to 1945 the number of union members quintupled, from under 3 million to 15 million.

That kind of explosive growth can't be created from the top down, and when it happens it totally changes the labor movement. Conditions today are ripe for another such explosion: people are working harder to stay in the same place, it's clear conventional politics won't bring change, business and the rich are plundering people in increasingly obvious and obscene ways, labor groups are forming once unheard of coalitions with other social movements, and the anti-war movement shows the global nature of the problem.

When an explosion comes it will change everything we think we know about the labor movement and what we mean by "union".

Full article at Labor Notes

Publishing notes:
1- Dan Clawson's "The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements" is available from Cornell University Press.

2- Doug Henwood's "After the New Economy" is set for an October 2003 release.

After Doug Henwood's scorching appraisal, all that remains of the new economy boosters is a faint smell of burning plastic. -Greg Palast

Nathan Newman and Martin Wisse at Progressive Gold, post comments and links on the "Politics of the Minimum Wage" Newman also reminds readers of the upcoming November 21-22 global justice protests in Miami. See: "Mark your calendars"

*****

In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is taken from the breaker, his girl from the mill. Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands.- Mother Jones