Sunday, August 31, 2003
This Labor Day weekend I want to remember all the men and women I have worked with and a few that I never had the honor of working with.
We, that have built this country with our hands, sweat and toil, are greatful for the respite of this weekend. We know and are thankful that there are fellow citizens still working in distant lands, in earnest effort to build a better land for our families here at home and for the family of men everywhere in the world.
We now have a President who lacks that working perspective: Who has no appreciation of the deep sacrifice that each one of these working people makes, how they give over their minds and bodies each day for those around them.
Labor has built this country. We are not the so-called movers and shakers, we are the builders. We give our lives and limbs day in and day out. Those that have no affinity for this life have no appreciation of the sacrifices made. They feel that only those movers and shakers can hold the helm of our destiny, that organized labor can only get in the way of their great plans.
Not too long ago, the President said civilian employees of the homeland security department would present an obstacle to national security if they were allowed to organize as union members. I would like remind everyone where the unions were on September 11, 2001 and where the President was on that day.
My union brothers and sisters were in New York City, Washington, D.C. and aboard an airplane over Pennsylvania. In each one of these places, union members bravely, honorably went to their deaths for the sake of their fellow citizens. They had little knowledge of the scope of what was happening that day or what might await them on the next flight of stairs. But they went.
While these lives were being given in self-sacrifice, what was our President doing? Why his scared, scab ass was scurrying halfway across the country on a humbug. A threat that no one seems to really know where it came from or what it was.
In whose hands would you put the security of our nation? ¶ 8/31/2003 03:30:00 PM
We, that have built this country with our hands, sweat and toil, are greatful for the respite of this weekend. We know and are thankful that there are fellow citizens still working in distant lands, in earnest effort to build a better land for our families here at home and for the family of men everywhere in the world.
We now have a President who lacks that working perspective: Who has no appreciation of the deep sacrifice that each one of these working people makes, how they give over their minds and bodies each day for those around them.
Labor has built this country. We are not the so-called movers and shakers, we are the builders. We give our lives and limbs day in and day out. Those that have no affinity for this life have no appreciation of the sacrifices made. They feel that only those movers and shakers can hold the helm of our destiny, that organized labor can only get in the way of their great plans.
Not too long ago, the President said civilian employees of the homeland security department would present an obstacle to national security if they were allowed to organize as union members. I would like remind everyone where the unions were on September 11, 2001 and where the President was on that day.
My union brothers and sisters were in New York City, Washington, D.C. and aboard an airplane over Pennsylvania. In each one of these places, union members bravely, honorably went to their deaths for the sake of their fellow citizens. They had little knowledge of the scope of what was happening that day or what might await them on the next flight of stairs. But they went.
While these lives were being given in self-sacrifice, what was our President doing? Why his scared, scab ass was scurrying halfway across the country on a humbug. A threat that no one seems to really know where it came from or what it was.
In whose hands would you put the security of our nation? ¶ 8/31/2003 03:30:00 PM
