eftychia: Fire extinguisher in front of US flag (savemynation)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 01:53pm on 2010-09-06

There was a quote similar to this that I'd planned to use for this morning's QotD entry, but I couldn't find it again in time. Fortunately, [info] - personal jonquil just provided this that I can quote instead, as an extra holiday QotD:

Happy Labor Day ... ...and thank you to all the radicals, socialists, and progressives who fought -- and sometimes died -- for the idea that workers should have an 8-hour day, time off, decent working conditions, and a living wage. Thank you to the unions who gave the workers the ability to negotiate in a form that the business owners could not ignore.

If only somebody powerful were speaking out for those things today.

Yes, socialists. (I may be misremembering the history, but weren't there communists involved as well?)

And then down in the comments:

I still have complicated feelings about the American unions. People gripe that the larger airlines are hamstrung by "ancient union contracts", but then we read about the situation at the non-union commuter airlines, with people getting less than four hours sleep and flying anyway, and nobody ever makes the connection.
There are 2 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] realinterrobang.livejournal.com at 06:25pm on 2010-09-06
Airline employees need strong union contracts more than most -- if they're overworked, underpaid, underslept, and run ragged, people die. When my dad was still working, he wouldn't even consider flying as a passenger on some of the discount carriers because he said they were too unsafe.
 
posted by [identity profile] sodyera.livejournal.com at 07:07am on 2010-09-07
The great tragedy is that a little Socialism in controlled amounts is a good thing. It takes a lot of pressure off private business and the nonprofit sector because it provides goods and services to people that the Free Market can't or won't touch becuase there's no money in their pockets. Unfortunately, the Fascists who run the Republican Party view such provisions of baseline humanitarian standards as a BAD thing. They believe the Free Market should have the freedom to ignore those at the bottom of the barrel, or those in need of temporary aid. They simplistically expect those problems to get jobs and one day become prosperous enough to profit from, or just go away.

But if you remember life in the last ten years, Fascism hasn't worked all that well, either.

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