09.01.14
Best quotes for end of Anti-Labor Day
“Politicians like to speechify about ‘hard-working Americans,’ but in your experience, what percentage of your colleagues actually work (or worked) hard?”
Here’s what they said:
Who is working hard is a difficult concept to quantify in today’s workforce. It is easier to determine who is slacking and not producing. That should be the question.
Lew Hundley, Salem
The problem is that our present liberal system is rewarding people for not working. Many are getting lazy and want to just live off the labor of others. That will come to an end soon.
William K. Dettwyler, Salem
I have worked both for government and private companies. Most people work hard, although a few do not. The big difference is that in the private sector the hard workers usually advance while in government the politically correct ones advance whether they work hard or not.
Loren Wright, Salem
Ninety-eight percent work as hard as they need to. Politicians speak of American exceptionalism, but we reward results rather than effort. We perceive the successful as hard-working rather than talented or fortunate, and the failures as shiftless or lacking ambition.
Erin Cramer, Stayton
While there are a lot of “hard-working” people in our country, it appears the percentage is decreasing. Unions represent the work force, but spend 90 percent of their time taking care of 10 percent of the workers. And the apathetic mentality of our people seems to be growing.
Tony Weaver, Woodburn
To be fair, not everyone was characterized by this certain lack of charity. But over half the hoi polloi were.
Labor Day should be renamed Labor-Management Day. –letter to the editor in Arizona
Most Americans realize that Labor Day is about celebrating workers and their contribution to our free society, but that wont stop union bosses from stealing the spotlight to push their own agenda. — a corporate flack pushing Right-to-Work law, in the Pensacola Union Tribune
Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor in 1886, said, “We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful and childhood more happy and bright. These in brief are the primary demands made by the Trade Unions in the name of labor. These are the demands made by labor upon modern society and in their consideration is involved the fate of civilization.” — from the Des Moines Register
That ended well.
We used up all of our tear gas and pepper spray.??? — the Chief Operating Officer of Ferguson, Missouri
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as allegory for US labor. You get turned into a giant beetle, are villified and injured. Then you die and get put in the trash.
Regardless of stories about Market Basket and Trader Joe’s.