How are you celebrating Labor Day?

1. 75

   WheelerWifeposted 9 years ago

   How are you celebrating Labor Day?

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2. 93

   Billie Kelpinposted 9 years ago

   I celebrated Labor Day by posting on FB my appreciation to my former colleagues, interpreters for the deaf, who attended meeting after meeting fighting so we would be able to be paid at least the same salary as the lowest rung of men working in our School District; so that we would have paid sick days (many of us had young children at the time), so that the School District would develop a standardized criteria for hiring interpreters to insure that deaf students were getting quality services.  Those meetings were tough requiring long and stressful negotiations, but my colleagues did it not only for themselves, but for the profession as well. 
   I was saddened to see a decorated cake at Ralph's saying "Support the Troops" as if Labor Day was Veterans Day. I don't think they wrote that because they knew that in general, it is the working class that go to war and come from a class that do the labor that NEEDS a voice.  I think they just were confused. But it's popular now to support Scott Walker in Wisconsin who has no understanding of the concept of workers' rights, and it's popular to get on the bandwagon for Donald Trump the epitome of the values of the 1%. 
   So it was sad for me, as the daughter of a factory worker in the 50s whose father ended up with a little gold watch and a piece of cake; it was sad for me, as a person who is grateful for all the behind-the-scenes work that "Labor" does for the rest of us; it was sad for me as a person who understands that there are workers throughout the world who don't deserve to die in a fire that sweepts through their run-down factory, or be a child who is forced to work in a mine digging for the diamonds we wear on our fingers - it was sad to see so few people honoring the day for what it really was meant to be.

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