Monday, September 03, 2007

Labor Day

PSoTD asked a big question the other day; What should the federal holiday, "Labor Day", mean to America? And how should we appropriately honor the day?

I don't have an answer. For most of us Labor Day is just another Monday holiday if you're lucky enough to get the day off. My many years in the hospitality industry meant I worked every Labor Day and Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years,etc. Maybe it should be a day that everything shuts down. If anything it should be a celebration of unions and the sacrifice of people who came before us to win an 8 hour workday, 40 hour week and a stop of such hideous practices as the breaker boys. People were murdered during strikes because they had the gumption to ask their employers for a better deal. It goes on today.

My Dad worked for the Armor Meat Company on N Penn Ave in W-B in a union shop for over 20 years. There was some sort of dispute that resulted in a strike and the resolution of the strike was Armor packing up the equipment in the middle of the night and moving it to Georgia to a non union shop. Putting everybody here out of work unless you wanted to move to Georgia and take a job that paid half of what you got. We never had a good Christmas after that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mr. G. told me about his dad losing his job with Armour. I refuse ro buy anything made by Armour. His family was destroyed. What an awful company to work for. Planters Peanuts is another one. Someone wants to put up a monument for Mr. Peanut. Sorry, but he's not here anymore. Put up a monument where he's making money for the corporation. He isn't helping my area at all so f^^k them. The same goes for Armour. I refuse to allow any Armrour products into my home.