Labor Day in the U.S

How Labor is Not Honored

Over the last few years, this last holiday of summer has all but faded away. While banks and government offices close, fewer and fewer laborers find themselves able to celebrate.

The local school district called parents this weekend to remind them that today is a regular school day. Parents of school-aged children, teachers and support staff can forget about a long weekend. A local editorial here (BCS Eagle) claims "Today, and every day, we salute America's workers." But that salute does not include an extra day off.

Last year, the same paper ran a special opinion piece (BCS Eagle2) by Mark Mix, of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRWLDF) . Mix believes that union membership has ruined American productivity. He works tirelessly to suppress labor unions throughout the country while claiming to be protecting people's right to work.

Today's New York Times tells the story of a Brooklyn company, Agriprocessors. The company claims that their workers cannot join a union because they are illegal immigrants. Of course, the company does not mind if the workers want to join the labor union that it endorses. Agriprocessors also wants the U.S. Supreme Court to change its own 1984 decision that illegal immigrants could join unions. The short version: Agriprocessors wants to have its cake and eat it too.

Agriprocessors is the world's largest kosher meatpacking company. It market share is so great that shutting down its Iowa plant caused shortages of kosher meats all over the country. Workers complain that it does not pay overtime, sells jobs, and disregards their safety. Animal-rights advocates have forced it to change the way it slaughters cattle. Immigration officials have raided it and found underage workers and illegal immigrants working there, and Conservative Jewish organizations have called on it to address these problems without any success. The company can certainly treat its workers humanely and maintain profits, but it chooses not to. Is it any wonder that employees want to join a union?