Hello Nation, dearest readers, crouched over your internet like near-sighted grandmothers working on a sock, or flicking refresh on your RSS feed with the easy comfort of a card-shark betting on eights at a low stakes table. Hello capitalists, and communists, technoutopians, and luddites, Methodists and muslims, people greedy for facts (you will be disappointed), and people greedy for conflict (I'll do my best). Treat me well, give me good suggestions, beat me up for my mistakes, edit my spelling, and I'll give you back my best Walt Whitman, Woody Guthrie, and Bruce Springstein (I've thought about spending the entire month deconstructing "This Land is Your Land," and if nothing else comes to mind, I warn you, I just might.)

And its May Day, May Day! The start of spring, the spur of the eight hour work week, the heart of public power.

When I was a kid, growing up in rural Vermont, we learned about May Day a little bit the way that Chinese children learn about Tianamen Square--oh, it was something to think on in wonder, sure, but nothing to do with mass protest. Instead, we'd spend May Day eve with a trowel, digging up bluets and violets to put in cut up egg cartons made of cardboard cotton (that soft, fudgy stuff, blue and brown, that they don't use any more) for tiny May Baskets. On May first we'd get up at the crack of dawn and drive over to the nearest neighbors houses, a mile away, put the little tufts of bluets by the door, knock and run away as quickly as possible so they wouldn't see who left it. Apparently if the Fishes or the Millers ever caught us knocking, they could kiss us, but it never happened, so we'd take off to school and read picture books about maypoles.

As fun as that was, I wish we'd read picture books about Chicago in 1886. I wish I'd read about hundreds of thousands of people around the world demanding normalcy, the rebellious posters asking for a normal work week for normal people, for the official declaration that eight hours should be normal.

As I understand it (and dearest readers, please correct me) the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada declared--in 1884--that as of May 1, 1886, it would be the policy of all unions to demand an eight hour work day. As that day approached, there was substantial conflict within the American unions about whether or not to strike, with at least one of the three biggest unions ordering its local members not to protest. But the locals organized despite all warnings, and on May 1, 1886, there were demonstrations around the country, including a massive one in Chicago with tens of thousands of workers, on a self-declared holiday, parading in the streets with their families. At the end of the parade there were speeches in at least four languages. Three days later, at a much smaller rally in Haymarket Square, a bomb exploded, killing seven police officers, and the police guarding the crowd fired into the rally, killing 200 people. The identity of the bomber remains a heavily debated mystery.

People around the world were inspired by the 1886 protests, and in the United States, further 8-hour-day protests in following years led to the gradual adoption of the eight hour work day as the standard across most industries May Day became a worldwide holiday.

Here's a hypothesis: May Day is to Labor Day as Martin Luther King, Jr. is to President Lyndon Johnson. Without May Day, Labor Day would not exist, just as without the Civil Rights Movement, Johnson's glorious Civil Rights legislation would not exist. All of these--the days and the people--are symbols, none are the thing itself, the movement of power in a society. But each represents a different kind of power. The former represents the exercise of power by those who have it, and are learning how to use it--the epitome of self-government, controlling, collectively, our own fate, through acts of courage. The latter--Labor Day and Johnson--represents the acknowledgement of those at the reins of law and government that this machine has felt the strong touch of the people, and will move at their will. Both are critical. Both are necessary. And both need to be celebrated. That said, it is fitting that May Day is the start of summer, and Labor Day is at its end.

Tell your children about May Day, today, both May Days, the flowers and the protests. Tell them that hundreds of millions of people lived different lives--were able to have dinner with their family, were able to live years more without a bent back--because of May Day, 1886.

May Day is not about people in the streets. I like streets as much as the next person, but streets, like the internet, are only tools--in 1890 they were powerful tools, and the right tools to use, but if you confuse the image with the action, you can spend years in the streets (or on the internet) and never get anything done. May Day was an actual expression of power that was being wielded to allow people to control their own lives.

And May Day is not about an ideology, unless that ideology is democracy.

Comments (62)

1. Hey, any relation to Terry?

   Posted by marybretbrad at 05/01/2008 @ 3:30pm

2. I assume this is you...

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_Teachout

   Regardless, welcome...as Mola Ram said as Willie and Short Round crossed the bridge...

   Back on-topic, 'fraid a lot of us remember May Day as the day lots of wool-jacketed Russians and their various tanks, artillery pieces, and MISSILES paraded past a big wall with wooly-hatted goombas!

   Posted by Mask at 05/01/2008 @ 3:40pm

3. I assume this is you...

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_Teachout

   Regardless, welcome...as Mola Ram said as Willie and Short Round crossed the bridge...

   Back on-topic, 'fraid a lot of us remember May Day as the day lots of wool-jacketed Russians and their various tanks, artillery pieces, and MISSILES paraded past a big wall with wooly-hatted goombas!

   Posted by Mask at 05/01/2008 @ 3:40pm

4. Sorry for the double...by the way, as a confident of Dr. Dean...

   you think he would have run the country a little better than he's running the DNC?

   Posted by Mask at 05/01/2008 @ 3:41pm

5. Could he have done worse than W?

   Posted by goyadad at 05/01/2008 @ 3:44pm

6. people greedy for facts (you will be disappointed), … beat me up for my mistakes…

   And its May Day, May Day! The start of spring, the spur of the eight hour work week,

   First the mistakes: I think the most bold suggestion The Nation has ever made was a 30-hour work week and wouldn't even dream of an eight-hour work week. (And should be "it's" not "its")

   Second, why the dearth of facts? I'd think writing about the law would require a few facts.

   Posted by marybretbrad at 05/01/2008 @ 3:45pm

7. "just as without the Civil Rights Movement, Johnson's glorious Civil Rights legislation would not exist. "

   SOOOOOO,

   You long for the struggle, the speeches and the bombs exploding...Go to Denver this fall...you can relive it all again, although I don't think it will be as inspiring as the Labor Movement is to you...even if you are form the American captial of socialism and Ice Cream...Vermont

   I think without the all the Republicans the legislation would not have passed, for the good Dems did a no show...(Talk about the South all you want, but the best riots were in Boston and Chicago)...

   and now those glorious unions have priced themselves out of the market...

   union membership is collapsing in industry and growing in....GOVERNMENT... yeah, lets dance in the streets and throw flowers for that one...

   Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/01/2008 @ 3:58pm

8. And it took Richard Nixon to get the rest of it passed in the Great Society.

   Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/01/2008 @ 3:59pm

9. Posted by goyadad at 05/1/2008

   Nope...but he could do a better job as DNC Chair, couldn't he?

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/1/2008

   Never know....lotta hippie kids out there....heheh

   Posted by Mask at 05/01/2008 @ 4:22pm

10. For those of us who celebrate May Day outside of the United States, thank you to those folks who in 1884 decided such a day needed to exist. It seems to me that workers still need to unite and correct a few things that are not in order in the system as it is. Unfortunately workers don't have time to do that, with needing three jobs to make ends meet as it is.

    Posted by claraba at 05/01/2008 @ 4:48pm

11. I remember a May Day (Nixon was president then) and the TV showed a million Chinese dancing and frollicking amid flowers and floats, and the announcer mentioned the "enslaved hordes of China..."

    Cut to: May Day Washington DC. It was the same day. Nixon had erected a huge wire cage for the holding of those thousands who were protesting the War in Viet Nam. I always remembered that, and things haven't changed much--except we are sending all our money to China now.

    Posted by motamanx at 05/01/2008 @ 5:36pm

12. .."Unfortunately workers don't have time to do that, with needing three jobs to make ends meet as it is.

    Posted by claraba at 05/1/2008 "

    Yes, it is unforunate...

    Especially in a society that is begging to pay engineers, science backgrounds, technical workers, computer workers in the six figure ranges...

    As long as our good schools keep doing their job(a good union job to celebrate) at a 50% grad rate, there will never be a shortage of workers who need to work 3 jobs just to keep the lights on..and those that do graduate will be ever ready to jump in those TSA uniforms and check out my grandmothers luggage for bombs..Unionised, of course..for efficiency and prowness, despite missing 80% of the bomb material sent through their "eyes" by the FBI in their random tests, but they do catch my 12 oz tooth paste tube that is down to 1 oz left...still gotta take it since in says 12 oz on the label...God I feel safe...my Govt union is helping me and my country from the schools to the DMV to airport..

    I kinda miss those 6 hour speeches in Red Square and all those cool red flags on May Day celebrating for the workers who proudly get an extra potatoe...for the workers, of course..did Castro have another 6 hour day on the Parade ground , perhaps celebrating more rice cookers?

    This is a silly article...

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/01/2008 @ 5:38pm

13. Claraba,

    "...thank you to those folks who in 1884 decided such a day needed to exist."

    Perhaps a thank you should go out to people like my Great great grandfather who did his part to end horrible labor laws, horrible working conditions and horrible treatment of the workers...

    he too, was faced with violence in doing so and was shot and wounded...

    and he was in a union....

    The UNION ARMY.

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/01/2008 @ 5:42pm

14. Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/1/2008

    We do thank them. Veteran's Day. Your argument is not there Jom we honor our veterans constantly. What do the people who worked to make sure that the American people have good working conditions not deserve thanks? Would you like us to have sweatshops, use child labor and have companies have no responsibility for the mangled hands of their children working in factories. How about sending children into coal mines? Or how about worked who end up with black lung because they worked in coal mines for 15 hours a day? Do you really have that much contempt for the unions that you can't even admit that raising the standards of working conditions was not something to be thanked?

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 5:50pm

15. Yokusou Roberts-san! Hopefully your tenure will be both enlightening and stimulating.

    (I've thought about spending the entire month deconstructing "This Land is Your Land," and if nothing else comes to mind, I warn you, I just might.)

    I'll give you one column, tops. Otherwise I condemn you to Liberal Hell, 24 hours of Rush in your ears and the regression to the excesses of the French aristocracy, and you're the lowest peasant. But really, welcome aboard. :)

    Posted by yutsano at 05/01/2008 @ 6:00pm

16. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/1/2008

    I of course do not want the conditions you describe..

    And the contempt I have for unions has nothing to do with the people working, rather the rules, politics, organised crime infestations combined with an attitude that never considers productivity, improvents or conditions of the industry or the people who use it(airlines, as an example) or the costs incured that are uneccessary that are associated with unions(Railroads still pay a guy called a fireman...the guy who used to shovel coal and wood into the fire box?)...

    They were great and innovative in the 1920s and 30s...today the mention of a union and a stereo type pops up into everyones mind...and it is not far from the truth...

    None of our big union dominated industries are...dominate any more, nor are they leading edges of commerce, nor are they the models one would look to for fluidity, efficiency, adaptability, flexibility, nor best income producing for the workers as a group..thats the myth...demand higher wages and bennies or we will collapse the company...look at the deal GM agreed to..stupid GM management, agreed, but as the ship took on water the unions refused to budge much..and now we pay guys in union halls to read the paper and they get full salary and bennies fors years, and do not touch a bolt...wonder where that cost ends up?..on the cars GM has not been selling for years....

    It ends up with the govt being the higher emplyer...and why again, are the govt workers unionised?

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/01/2008 @ 6:24pm

17. This is a loser thread...

    Unions-the scourge of America. Marxist dominated control freaks who promise not to shut down production in the country in exchange for mediocre work.

    May Day-Bah Humbug!

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/01/2008 @ 6:41pm

18. Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/1/2008

    This is a viable argument but it doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate the things they did for us in their heyday and the people who were murdered by union busters just to get what should be obvious rights for workers.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 7:04pm

19. Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/1/2008

    I will pose the same question to you then. So you want child labor, sweat shops and mangled children from working in completely unsafe conditions? Doesn't sound too Christian to me.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 7:06pm

20. Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/1/2008

    Film still has a big hold and almost everyone is in one union or another.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 7:06pm

21. Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/1/2008

    I am in fact trying to join the IATSE.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 7:08pm

22. Ibble,

    As I said, they were great ...in the past..today, not so great..j

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/01/2008 @ 7:13pm

23. Would you like us to have sweatshops, use child labor and have companies have no responsibility for the mangled hands of their children working in factories.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/1/2008

    Only if it would keep these bad-ass kids off the streets. It would certainly make them more appreciative of the freedoms they have.

    Posted by ACook at 05/01/2008 @ 7:22pm

24. Only if it would keep these bad-ass kids off the streets. It would certainly make them more appreciative of the freedoms they have.

    Posted by ACook at 05/1/200

    Very Christian you want mangled children so they can be appreciative of freedoms they no longer have because they can't walk or don't have the use of one of their hands.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 7:39pm

25. Could he have done worse than W?

    Posted by goyadad at 05/1/2008

    president cheney?

    Thursday, May 1, 2008 8:14:01 PM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/01/2008 @ 8:09pm

26. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/1/2008 |

    LVLIB is a STRICK Constitutionalist (on some things)...which means as long as child labor, sweat shops, and unsafe working conditions are not covered by the Article 1, Sect 8......go for it.

    Suffer the little children...literally.

    Posted by Mask at 05/01/2008 @ 8:19pm

27. Posted by frosty zoom at 05/1/2008 |

    DON'T SPEAK THOSE BLASPHEMOUS WORDS.

    Just the though is enough to make me start packing my bags.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 8:35pm

28. zephyr |ˈzefər|

    noun

    1 poetic/literary a soft gentle breeze.

    2 historical a fine cotton gingham.

    • a very light article of clothing.

    ORIGIN late Old English zefferus, denoting a personification of the west wind, via Latin from Greek zephuros ‘(god of) the west wind.' Sense 1 dates from the late 17th cent.

    Thursday, May 1, 2008 9:05:13 PM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/01/2008 @ 9:00pm

29. teachout |tēch • out |

    noun

    1 a competition between dueling pedagogs. 2 archaic frothy ale.

    ORIGIN late Old Phoenician teachoutte, denoting a purveyor of electronic ramblings, via Canadian from Creole teecher ‘person that gives homework.' Sense 1 dates from the late 17th cent.

    Thursday, May 1, 2008 9:11:14 PM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/01/2008 @ 9:06pm

30. The 'back to the land" movement of the 60's was really started by a man & ultimately a couple,who were the victims of Republican child labor advocates in the state of Pennsylvania. Blackballed from his teaching job for tangling with these beasts, the couple ended up in Vermont & finally Maine to live & teach. The couple was Helen & Scott Nearing. Not much has changed.

    Posted by Sorelish at 05/01/2008 @ 10:26pm

31. By the way, most incompetents in union shops are the company lackies who work off the clock, perform unauthorized duties, gift the boss, & just generally kiss ass. Most vote Republican.

    Posted by Sorelish at 05/01/2008 @ 10:41pm

32. I will pose the same question to you then. So you want child labor, sweat shops and mangled children from working in completely unsafe conditions? Doesn't sound too Christian to me.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/1/2008

    Of course not. But unions have nothing to do with that.

    That is unless you are saying that employers are allowed to steal children from their parents in this country and put them in forced labor?

    Seems to me it was parents back then sending their children to work? Or do you have different information?

    Do you think if unions were abolished that we would institute child slavery in this country?

    Some of my worst work experiences involve the 8 years combined that I spent in the Teamsters and UAW.

    It's nothing but a criminal racket with Marxist leadership.

    Thankfully, except for government workers, we've pretty much moved past union membership in this country.

    I go out of my way to cross a picket line every time I see one.

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/01/2008 @ 10:55pm

33. Incompetents can perform tasks. It just takes them twice as long to do so.

    Posted by Sorelish at 05/01/2008 @ 10:57pm

34. Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/1/2008

    The reason parents had to send their kids to work was because there was no wage system set. So all the companies that had tons of employees paid dirt. Which means parents HAD to send their kids to work or else their family would not eat. If you don't know this you need to study history a little more. In that time parents had no choice and education was not accessible to most of the country. If it wasn't for union this would still be the case. If employers didn't have to pay their employees they wouldn't Railroad companies, oil companies, coal companies, textile companies all did this back in the day and no one could stop them. Most of the rich did not know or care about the plight of the poor and they were the only ones buying the product. It was either work for them and risk dying or die for sure from starvation. The government HELPED the companies kill union workers who tried to organize protests against companies who didn't care for their employees. Basically they were trying to excercise their right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and companies KILLED THEM with the help of the US government. There were no other options but to work in shit conditions and send your kids to work and get them potentially mangled for life or killed just to keep your family alive. I contend that the ONLY reason employers stopped treating their employees the way they did was because of unions. Show me different.

    If you don't know this you need to read a little more.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 11:20pm

35. Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/1/2008

    Just because you don't like unions DOES NOT mean they didn't have a positive effect at one time in this country. Maybe they aren't what they used to be but this article is not about them now it is about what they did for us then. If you can't see the benefits they gave us in the past you need to get your eyes checked. For all your smarts you can't look past the tip of your nose to see the FACTS of history. Not open to interpretation set in stone facts. As Lewis Black said "When is the day when Democrats and Republicans will look at a piece of information and just agree on what the fuck reality is."

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/01/2008 @ 11:23pm

36. Welcome, West Wind.

    It's not only in Vermont that people remember the original date of International Workers' Day. We remember it in Minneapolis, too, every year, with a fun May Day festival that features giant puppets from the "In the Heart of the Beast" Mask and Puppet Theater.

    And I'll bet our friend Zephyr knows exactly where the phrase "In the Heart of the Beast" comes from!

    Posted by JakobFabian at 05/02/2008 @ 08:45am

37. so people who live in social democracies tend to be happier and far less religious!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/2/2008

    That's becuase they have zero expections of anything. And the worst of the bunch are the French.

    Posted by ACook at 05/02/2008 @ 1:35pm

38. Posted by ACook at 05/2/2008

    Nothing but practicing the Art Of Living, ignorant slave.

    Posted by Sorelish at 05/02/2008 @ 2:03pm

39. Posted by JakobFabian at 05/2/2008 |

    MAy DAy Parade? I grew up in Hopkins...it was the RASPBERRY PARADE!!!

    Of course, they have paved the place over now and the raspberrys come from the back yard or from Chile at $ 6.00 a small box.

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/02/2008 @ 2:52pm

40. ah tricky dicky - last great liberal president this country had!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/1/2008

    You nailed that one. Nixon was the last GREAT liberal to serve as president. Carter is liberal, but a shitty president.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/02/2008 @ 4:45pm

41. I go out of my way to cross a picket line every time I see one.

    Posted by lvliberty1

    that's truly pathetic.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/03/2008 @ 12:31am

42. oh - the french also manage to save 12% of their income on average, as compared to .2% for us.

    Posted by ibbleblibble

    actually, i believe the current u.s. saving's rate is NEGATIVE .5%

    Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:37:44 AM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/03/2008 @ 12:33am

43. great posts ibble, except the mayday one. showing your male-centric view yet again. it is a fertility celebration, not a penis celebration. both the maypoles and the may baskets have symbolic meanings.

    Posted by loveloki at 05/03/2008 @ 01:30am

44. Welcome, Zephyr. Perhaps the 2008 equivalent of the 8-hour work day would be tax justice for the workers. Our friends the 'Movement Conservatives' claim to have the tax issue sewn up, but instead of policies they have talking points, like "Taxes are bad (except regressive taxes like payroll and sales taxes)."

    Posted by samcrossett at 05/03/2008 @ 09:38am

45. So you want child labor… Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/1/2008

    Suffer the little children...literally. Posted by Mask at 05/1/2008

    I've read that Unions did absolutely nothing to end child labor. There was a period of time when child labor was economically viable. It was a time when, say, 50% - 80% of children lived on farms, anyway, and they all had to work. (Why do you think kids don't go to school in the summer? So they can help with planting and harvest, of course.) Then, in the 1800s America started to industrialize. Children were economically viable for a time, but with rapid industrialization, it wasn't so, and as children lost there ability to be economically productive, it was a lot easier for the "do-gooder" to get child labor laws passed.

    Don't get me wrong, I think child labor laws are a good thing. My only point is that they became a reality only after 95% of the country agreed that their kids shouldn't have to work. The idea that a bunch or unions browbeat the country into conceding their superior morality is a fantasy.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 6:53pm

46. it doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate the things they did for us in their heyday and the people who were murdered by union busters… Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/1/2008

    The last people murdered by Union busters died several decades ago. In the last 40 years, it is the unions that have used murder and violence to their economic advantage. I don't go quite as far as Masch and LVL in despising them today, but their continued use of murder and violence are one of the biggest negatives for me.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 6:59pm

47. Posted by marybretbrad at 05/3/2008

    I'm sorry, how many unions have been conspirators to MURDER?!!??! And your source for that info?

    Posted by Mask at 05/03/2008 @ 7:15pm

48. Give me a minute to Google it.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:18pm

49. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E04E0DA1E30E733A25752C3A 9659C946297D6CF

    EIGHTEEN ARRESTED FOR STRIKE VIOLENCE; Waterbury Police Take Union Sympathizers Into Custody. Belief That These Arrests Will Clear Up the Mystery of the Murder of Policeman Mendelssohn.

    March 31, 1903, Tuesday

    WATERBURY, Conn., March 30. -- Eighteen men placed under arrest on the charge of assault with intent to kill was the record of activity on the part of the police to-day in their efforts to discover the authors of some of the outbreaks of violence which have occurred since the beginning of the strike of motormen and conductors of the Connecticut Railway and Lighting Company eleven weeks ago.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:23pm

50. http://nottheoregonianunionnews.blogspot.com/2007/07/teamster-violence-e rupts-on-east-bay.html

    Teamster violence erupts on East Bay picket line

    The East Bay garbage lockout went from dirty to dangerous, after somebody used an unknown projectile to shatter a garbage truck window driven by a replacement worker.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:30pm

51. http://www.nrtw.org/free-tagging/strike

    Reports of Union-Related Violence Surface in Bakersfield, California \ Mon, 04/21/2008 - 16:28 -- Will Collins

    A Foundation Action subscriber recently brought this developing story to our attention. Reports of union-related violence and intimidation have surfaced in Bakersfield, California, where members of the local United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners are accused of physically abusing a project manager at a local construction site. Police have responded to reports of union-related violence by opening an investigation into the incident.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:32pm

52. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_/ai_19863135

    AT 3:15 A.M. Sunday, November 8, 1995, Lance Young, a Detroit newspaper carrier, left a Detroit News - Free Press distribution center, his pickup truck loaded with papers for his 550 customers... As Young changed a tire, a hundred-vehicle squadron of raiders headed up the ramp toward him. Several threw beer bottles and tried to hit him on the head with signs. After the first thirty vehicles passed, three vans stopped and men with baseball bats, tire irons, and picket signs got out. Young retreated into his own truck, locked the door, and tried to dial 911. A brick shattered his window, and he fended off the missile with his arm. One man broke the window with a tire iron and flailed at him. Others battered his truck, rocked it, and tried to push it off the hill. Horns honked, and the attackers fled. Young went to the hospital, and resigned as a carrier the next day.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:37pm

53. http://electric-america.com/wt98/wt0412t.htm

    The Teamsters union has waged a nationwide campaign of retribution against members who dared to cross picket lines during last year's strike against United Parcel Service, documents and interviews show.

    Beatings, shootings, stabbings, death threats, intimidation and illegal confiscation of union dues have been reported by hundreds of workers since Teamsters President Ron Carey ordered the strike in August. Criminal charges, civil lawsuits and more than 100 complaints with the National Labor Relations Board have been filed in states from Alaska to Florida.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:41pm

54. http://www.unionfacts.com/articles/crimeViolence.cfm

    West Virginia miner shot dead for working during a strike (1993)

    Virginia women targeted for working during a strike (1996)

    UPS driver beaten and stabbed by fellow union "brothers" (1997)

    Worker who opposed unionization has his house "put on the map" (2004)

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:51pm

55. http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/8541357.html

    Maremont President: Strikers Causing "Epidemic of Violence

    "Those are wild accusations with no proof behind them whatsoever," says union spokesman Bob Wood.

    But Banks says the strikers have unleashed an "epidemic of violence" against the plant and current workers. "They're just trying to terrorize us into giving into what they would like us to do." He says that includes: a bomb threat, shooting into employee homes and car fires.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 7:56pm

56. In my google search, I tried to find things in the last 25 years. I saw a bunch of stuff about violence against union workers. It was all from 1900, give or take 20 years.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/03/2008 @ 8:05pm

57. Posted by marybretbrad at 05/3/2008

    I'll bet you treat your illegal aliens sooo good. Do you purchase your medications in a parking lot?

    Posted by Sorelish at 05/03/2008 @ 9:16pm

58. Hey, read the post. I said I found instances of owners using violence againse the union guys. It just that all the incidences I found were at least 80 years old.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/04/2008 @ 01:33am

59. I'll bet you treat your illegal aliens sooo good. Do you purchase your medications in a parking lot?

    Posted by Sorelish at 05/3/2008

    I would never do anything so unpatriotic as to hire an illegal alien.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 05/04/2008 @ 01:34am

60. I challenge you to "Deconstruct this land is your land". then do: "Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time. . Once I built a railroad, now it's done. Buddy, can you spare a dime? Nice post, keep on telling the truth.

    Posted by julien38 at 05/04/2008 @ 12:48pm

61. I would never do anything so unpatriotic as to hire an illegal alien.

    Posted by marybretbrad

    do you "eat" at burger king?

    i'd say at least 50% of your food has been touched by "illegal" hands.

    Sunday, May 4, 2008 1:29:00 PM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/04/2008 @ 1:24pm

62. "I've read that Unions did absolutely nothing to end child labor. There was a period of time when child labor was economically viable. It was a time when, say, 50% - 80% of children lived on farms, anyway, and they all had to work. (Why do you think kids don't go to school in the summer? So they can help with planting and harvest, of course.) Then, in the 1800s America started to industrialize. Children were economically viable for a time, but with rapid industrialization, it wasn't so, and as children lost there ability to be economically productive, it was a lot easier for the "do-gooder" to get child labor laws passed."

    Neither planting or harvest are in summer. I suspect summer vacations have more to do with lack of air conditioning technology, as a classroom would be pretty unbearable at 90-100 degrees, with no electrical fans or air conditioning and 30+ children crammed into a 1 room school house.

    Posted by Guiles at 05/05/2008 @ 2:25pm