Happy Labor Day
posted by Frank Pasquale
Two thoughts:
1) A friend of mine from law school, Nathan Newman, marked Labor Day last year with a set of observations on the state of unions. He notes that the “actual number of workers unionized has largely stabilized around 16 million members in the last decade,” and leaders have found “new ways to strengthen the freedom of workers to form unions without depending on [a now hostile] NLRB.”
2) For workers generally, Labor Day can be a day of rest & recreation. Anticipating its arrival, Krista Tippett’s “Speaking of Faith” program interviewed the founder of the National Institute for Play. He said that people can really wear down and experience a great deal of stress without play/leisure. . . a point understood by John Finnis in his Natural Law and Natural Rights, which calls play one of the seven intrinsically valuable basic goods. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Exercens applies the theory:
[There is a] right to rest. In the first place this involves a regular weekly rest comprising at least Sunday, and also a longer period of rest, namely the holiday or vacation taken once a year or possibly in several shorter periods during the year.
Wise words from a document with a number of insights on the nature of work and the rights of workers in today’s society.
September 2, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Posted in: Employment Law
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Responses (3)
KipEsquire - September 2, 2007 at 9:51 pm
“He notes that the “actual number of workers unionized has largely stabilized around 16 million members in the last decade”
Only if one includes government employees, which demonstrates precisely why the modern collectivist bargaining system is such a farce: If labor unions were meant to protect workers from “big, evil employers,” then does the rise of government employee unions mean that government — the same government that spawned labor unions in the first place — is also “big and evil”?
Patrick S. O'Donnell - September 3, 2007 at 12:17 am
In addition to Frank’s excellent references, I would add the following:
The true “labor day” remains May 1st: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2007/05/may_day_the_tru.html#comments
The following handful of titles is selected from my bibliography, “The World of Work & Labor Law:
A Basic Bibliography.” I think a good way to celebrate the holiday would be to promise oneself to buy and/or read some of these books. (One also might have a look at the New Labor Forum: http://www.newlaborforum.org/)
Alston, Philip, ed. Labour Rights as Human Rights. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005.
American Social History Project. Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 2. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.
Basu, Kaushik, et al., eds. International Labor Standards: History, Theory and Policy Options. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001.
Elster, Jon and Karl Ove Moene, eds. Alternatives to Capitalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Estlund, Cynthia. Working Together: How Workplace Bonds Strengthen a Diverse Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Freeman, Richard B. and James L. Medoff. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books, 1984.
Gross, James A., ed. Workers’ Rights as Human Rights. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Harrod, Jeffrey and Robert O’Brien, eds. Global Unions? Theory and Strategies of Organized Labour in the Global Political Economy. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Hepple, Bob. Labour Laws and Global Trade. Oxford, UK: Hart Publ., 2005.
Levine, Bruce, et al. Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 1. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
Moody, Kim. Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy. London: Verso, 1997.
Polin, Bob and Stephanie Luce. The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy. New York: New Press, revised ed., 2000.
Schor, Juliette. The Overworked American. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
Sevais, Jean-Michel. International Labour Law. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2005.
Wright, Erik Olin. The Debate on Classes. London: Verso, 1990.
See too, in your leisure time:
AFL-CIO: http://www.aflcio.org/
American Rights at Work: http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/
Center for Labor Research and Education, University of California, Los Angeles: http://www.labor.ucla.edu/
Coalition of Labor Union Women: http://www.cluw.org/
Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, University of Washington: http://depts.washington.edu/pcls/
International Labour Organization: http://www.ilo.org/
Jobs With Justice: http://www.jwj.org/
Justice for Janitors: http://www.seiu.org/property/janitors/
Labor Blog (Nathan Newman): http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/
Labor Net: http://www.labornet.org/
Labor Notes: http://labornotes.org/index.shtml (the links are indispensable)
Labor Party: http://www.thelaborparty.org/
LabourStart: http://www.labourstart.org/
School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (ILR School): http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/
United Professionals (UP): http://www.unitedprofessionals.org/
Patrick S. O'Donnell - September 3, 2007 at 1:06 am
Erratum above: Juliet B. Schor
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