Labor Day Open Thread [9.1.14]

So now we have a new bit of right-wing foolishness to live through — Right wing launches misguided protest against Labor Day. Got that? A protest against Labor Day, folks.

But to the Freedom Foundation, a business-backed Olympia think tank, the day is evidence of the power of unions, which to members equals the decline of America. Rather than stoop to taking a union-backed day off, they plan to fight the power by … working all day Monday instead!

“I can’t think of a problem in society that can’t be traced in some way back to the abuses of organized labor, so it would be hypocritical of us to take a day off on its behalf,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe, in announcing the “work-in.”

A “work-in”. As if there aren’t plenty of Americans who *are* working on Labor Day — either because they are staffing operations that need to be open (hospitals) or because they are one of the very many overworked Americans who still need to do some work today in order to keep up with the workload. But you can consider this one more piece of evidence that these conservatives are drum majors for our eventual serfdom.

Wage theft is a real problem for workers, one that both the Feds and some states are looking to try to curb. Companies and their lawyers are talking about these lawsuits and better laws as “opportunistic” — which is pretty choice for these lawyers who bill their clients by the hours they work. Corporate profits reach new highs pretty much every quarter right now and yet they feel that they need to do that on the backs of their employees:

The lawsuit is part of a flood of recent cases — brought in California and across the nation — that accuse employers of violating minimum wage and overtime laws, erasing work hours and wrongfully taking employees’ tips. Worker advocates call these practices “wage theft,” insisting it has become far too prevalent.

Some federal and state officials agree. They assert that more companies are violating wage laws than ever before, pointing to the record number of enforcement actions they have pursued. They complain that more employers — perhaps motivated by fierce competition or a desire for higher profits — are flouting wage laws.

The recession is widely thought to be over and much of the economic news that reaches the headlines often looks good (who hasn’t heard about how well the stock market is doing — as if it was a proxy for the entire economy), but there are large swaths of American workers who don’t feel the security that the end of the recession should produce. Why? Real wages are down pretty much across the board:

And these workers are noticing this wage loss by telling pollsters that they think that the circumstances of the last few years of the recession are now becoming permanent:

So while the “economic system” may be recovered and healthier, American workers are not recovered and healthier. Which is on purpose, right? So if you are seeing your Congressional delegation today while they are out campaigning for votes and talking about the importance of Labor Day — please ask them why they continue to vote to make corporate interests OK, but they can’t find a way to help you recover from this recession too.