When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.
Kyrsten Sinema @SenatorSinema
Happy Labor Day! We’re committed to ensuring every Arizona family has a fair shot at the American Dream. 11:15 AM · Sep 6, 2021
Ironic.
Some of the responses:
Serious question, are you trolling your constituents with this after you voted down $15 an hour minimum wage and that you are helping to hold up voting rights legislation?
lols, sure. that’s why you voted against the $15 minimum wage.
[….]
What have you done to support working Americans?
What have you done to protect American families?
What have you done to secure voting rights and protect democracy?
Exactly what have you done for Americans? & wealthy donors don’t count.
We’ll be right here waiting for your answer
That’s why you voted no on a $15 federal minimum wage amendment in dramatic fashion.
Ratio!!
[….]
…as long as it doesn’t involve a livable wage.
Or women’s reproductive rights
Or women’s reproductive rights
Watching you get ratioed is the best Labor Day ever.
OMG. lmao. [….]
You voted against a $15 minimum wage. So no. You’re not.
I’m sorry but no you’re not.
Really? Fact is you:
-Voted down $15/hour
-Reject investing in people
-Refuse to break the filibuster to support voting rights
You’ve done a lot of talking, ma’am. But rejected significant changes to support Arizona families and other Americans.
So the “American Dream” is to never make more than $7.25 an hour?
The American Dream would be easier to achieve with the fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage you so blithely voted against. You are a disgrace.
You cannot be “committed to ensuring every Arizona family has a fair shot at the American Dream” while allowing the filibuster to be used to obstruct a living wage. Show us some action.
You’re a horrible troll and it’s actively worse when you pay lip service to things that you deliberately stand in the way of improving despite being one of the 0.0002% of Americans who actually have the power to do something.
The filibuster is blocking access to the American Dream…unless your American Dream is a broken government that can’t even increase the minimum wage or protect the right to vote.
Really?
Because last I checked you helped block Congress from passing the first increase to the minimum wage since the George W Bush was president.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler @RepHartzler
Wishing all of Missouri a safe and happy #LaborDay!
[….]
Yeah, working people.
Some of the responses:
Reminder: @RepHartzler had a chance to make ACA more affordable for her voters. She didn’t.
Had a chance to CUT IN HALF 17% child poverty in MO04. Didn’t.
Had a chance to refund cops, EMTs in towns ravaged by Covid. Didn’t.
To assure each family member a $1400 check. She didn’t.
[….]
Why? You don’t care about the working people’s unions that brought Labor Day into being. Your votes tell us so.
Thank s union not Right to work politicians like you.
Right to get paid less.
Hypocrite. Your tweet should have said “thank a Union”.
What is it with parades in Jefferson City? Yesterday, a Labor Day parade (think about that for a second).
The evil red t-shirt:
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America – the red t-shirt [2018 file photo].
We received the following account via e-mail:
Members of Jefferson City Moms Demand Action went to the Jefferson City Labor Day parade Saturday, September 8th in our red t-shirts to split up and march with the various candidates for public office who have earned our Gun Sense Candidate of Distinction designation.
I was told by a parade organizer that we were not welcome to wear our t-shirts in the parade. I thought maybe he had misunderstood our presence and thought we were planning to march as a contingent without a permit. I went over and over the distinction with him to no avail; he wasn’t budging. The police were consulted and threatened us with a citation if we wore our shirts without turning them inside out or covering them with a jacket.
We complied because we didn’t want to cause a scene which would reflect poorly on our candidates or our organization.
It is surely unconstitutional for anyone to have to give up their freedom of speech to participate in a parade supported by city funding for police presence and logistics.
As a private citizen (not a Moms Demand official), I have demanded a public apology from the mayor, city council, and chief of police; and a public reprimand of the parade organizers and police department be printed in the newspaper on the editorial page post haste and repeated in the subsequent Sunday edition. I have also submitted my complaint to ACLU Missouri.
Sue Gibson
Jefferson City
Somebody has some explaining to do.
Labor Day, huh? What ever happened to solidarity?
And, well, newspapers never do anything they don’t want to do.
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country….
You wouldn’t know that if you asked some republicans.
Early this morning close to four hundred supporters of organized labor gathered in a park at 33rd and Southwest Trafficway just south of Metropolitan Community College for a Labor Day rally and march.
“Stand Up KC”
“Racial inequality? Unionize!”
“We are worth more”
A number of labor activists and office holders spoke to the crowd during the rally.
Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) speaking at the early morning Labor Day rally and march in Kansas City – September 4, 2017.
“Stand up”
The march proceeded east on the sidewalk on 33rd Street and then turned south on Main. Kansas City Police in a mounted (horse) unit and patrol units accompanied the march.
Thank a Union Member. They fought for your weekend, your lunch break, your pension, your safety and are still fighting today. #p2 9:32 AM – 1 Sep 2014
Jeff Mazur @jmaz
Some of these pols sending out #LaborDay greetings are like Jesse Helms wishing us a happy MLK Jr. Day. 2:47 PM – 1 Sep 2014
Heh. Or Ronald Reagan (r):
John Fugelsang @JohnFugelsang
Where free unions & collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. – Ronald Reagan. Happy Labor Day 2:15 PM – 1 Sep 2014
El Guapo @TheDailyRefried
Labor unions have been systematically undermined with the help of elected officials working in conjunction with corporations #HappyLaborDay 2:26 PM – 1 Sep 2014
Robert Reich @RBReich
The biggest Labor Day sale is of our Congress, to the highest bidders. 1:48 PM – 1 Sep 2014
Congress?:
Speaker John Boehner @SpeakerBoehner
This #LaborDay, we tip our cap to America’s workers & pledge to keep doing all we can to bring jobs home. [….] 1:29 PM – 1 Sep 2014
I grew up on the romance of the the early labor movement. My father was a full-on supporter of unions and I knew what solidarity meant before I was old enough to go to school. Today, we talk about the need to defend FDR’s New Deal, which many of us consider the single most important factor in the creation of today’s strong though embattled middle class. The New Deal, however, and programs like Social Security, would have been impossible without the fifty to sixty years of labor ferment, often violent, that preceded the Great Depression, and the sacrifices of the individuals who fought in the name of solidarity. So, in honor of that history, I’ve put up a song that reflects the union spirit:
And here’s a song about the archetypal union man:
Some more suggestions for celebrating Labor Day: Get a copy of Labor’s Untold Story: The Adventure Story of the Battles, Betrayals and Victories of American Working Men and Women by Richard Boyer and Herbert Morals, and begin reading it. John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. Trilogy is also a great, if pessimistic, mix of fiction, news clippings and biographical sketches that present the social ferment of the 1920 and 30s. It’s not just history, but one of the greatest literary achievements of the 20th century. For those who prefer movies, my favorites are the 1999 film, Cradle will Rock, and, of course, John Sales’ Matewan.
Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) sent out her weekly constituent e-mail. It opens with:
From: Representative Vicky Hartzler [….]
Date: Sat, Sep 1, 2012 [….]
Subject: View From the Capitol – Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler’s Newsletter for the Week of August 27-31, 2012
To: [….]
Labor Day heralds the end of the traditional summer driving season. And, many Missourians hitting the road for the last bit of summer fun….
That’s it for Labor Day.
The e-mail continues with previous boilerplate blaming President Obama for higher gas prices now than when he took office (debunked here) and blaming “Senate liberals” for not helping republicans further coddle big oil. Who knew that Tom Harkin (D) had such power? She also throws in a gratuitous jab at the Environmental Protection Agency for good measure.
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
James Hoffa, Jr: …Everybody here’s gotta vote. If we go back and we keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong. [cheers] Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you…
Right wingnuttia is apparently going berserk:
…Republican consultant Brad Blakeman decried the comments as “thuggery at its best” and “the kind of remarks you’d expect out of Tony Soprano,” and commented that “when a union president says ‘let’s take these sons of bitches out,’ that usually means someone’s legs are going to get broken, somebody’s going to disappear.” Meanwhile, anchor Megyn Kelly somehow did not mention Henry’s previous explanation that the comments were references to voting Republicans out of office…
…Andrew Breitbart operative and CNN contributor Dana Loesch quickly followed up the attack on Twitter, claiming soon after the Fox segment and Henry tweet that Hoffa “threatens tea party voters” and that if Obama “doesn’t condemn then he is sanctioning violence against fellow Americans by silence”…
[emphasis added]
Evidently teabaggers don’t believe in the legitimacy of anyone’s vote except their own.
Because Labor Day messages about the meaning of the holiday shouldn’t all come from corporate owned media outlets and their talking heads:
Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO: Hi, I’m Rich Trumka, wishing you and your working family a very happy Labor Day, two thousand eleven.
Labor Day’s the one time of year when we stop and take a moment to recognize the value of work and all who do it. It’s when we honor the electrical workers who’ve got the east coast power back on after Hurricane Irene, the teachers and coaches who educate our children and help keep them on the right path, and the bus drivers who get us to work each day.
It’s a time when we think about our own work, how we help build our communities and make America strong and how proud we are of the work that we do.
It’s also a time to think about the millions of men and women who’ve lost their jobs and spent weeks, months, even years struggling to get back to work.
This Labor Day I want to thank you for your activism to improve the lives of working families and to ask you if you can commit to doing even more. Will you pledge today to join me in waging a massive America wants to work campaign for good jobs?
Together, as activists, it’s our job to demand that our leaders , local and state officials, Congress and the President take big bold action now to create good jobs and to put America back to work.
So, today, right now, pledge to be even more active than you’ve been in the past and to help lead the America wants to work campaign to put America back to work.
You can sign the pledge by e-mail or online at AFL-CIO dot org. Or you can get out your mobile phone now and text pledge to 235246. We’ll keep you informed about the America wants to work campaign and when and how you can make a difference.
Thank you brothers and sisters. Thank you for the work that you do and have a happy Labor Day.
