Monday Stuff

Here is a clip reminding us of the importance of today's holiday, as well as of the labor movement overall (more here , here, here, here, and a true relic is here...and as noted here, the beat goes on, you might say)…



...also, this story tells us about the Chicago Labor Day March, with the theme of workers over billionaires (rallying at Haymarket, which is a storied location in the history of organized labor, as noted in the first video)...



...and this tells us about the nurses’ protests at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, highlighted by a one-day strike followed by a four-day lockout by management in July...the core issues are wages and cost-of-living adjustments along with nurse/patient staffing ratios and charges of unfair labor practices...my understanding is that negotiations are ongoing...more here...



And as long as I’m including a clip about vitally important health care workers, I have to add something.

A very dear and beloved family member works in health care (taking care of an elderly population), and it is an absolute horror show at her employer, who generally is good (and this scenario is replaying itself with other facilities of this type). The reason is the cut in Medicare/Medicaid funding from The Big Beautiful Clusterf*ck; all of these places are scrambling to make up the lost revenue (and that’s why situations occur where LPNs show up for work and they’re definitely needed for the type of adult population which is prone to accidents such as slips and falls, but these LPNs are told to go home because there’s no funding for them). Oh, and facilities of this type are cited by the state which regulates this business (oh, excuse me...in PA, it’s the “commonwealth”), so there’s added pressure to comply if they fall short (and again, they’re falling short for staffing reasons because the reimbursement from the government was cut out). I sincerely hope you don’t have a family member receiving care at one of these places that is experiencing issues of this type, but if they are, I likely just stated the reason.

If you’re reading this, I realize you’re not likely to vote for a Republican. But if somehow you’re inclined to do so, because of that horrible bill alone (which is catastrophic for health care for all of us and just rewards the ”pay no price, bear no burden” bunch yet again), I just have one question: Are you out of your f*cking mind???!!!!

...and here is a report on the Long Island Railroad workers strike last May...a tentative agreement was reached after three days...



...and Robert Reich tells us about 5 ways to strengthen labor and the middle class of this country...video is 13 years old, but it still has some good points about leveling the playing field, you might say, for workers...and I’m pretty sure the minimum wage adjusted for productivity and inflation is around $15 an hour now (what the federal minimum wage should be, I mean)...good idea about increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit also (and let's not forget this, by the way)...



Update 9/2/24: Well said.

...and here is a tune for the holiday.