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| YELLOW TRANSPARENT APPLE |
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| LABOR DAY COOK OUT |
Monday, Labor Day, 8:30 AM. 54 degrees F, wind WNW, calm. The sky is overcast and the humidity is 82%. The barometer is trending up at 30.05". The day is a toss up, weather wise.
We had a fine last-of-summer cookout at the Larsen camp yesterday evening. Old friends Paul and JoAnn were also camping with their two dogs, so there were six of us friends and four dogs around the fire. It got really cool as evening wore on and we all ended up wearing jackets or sweaters (except the dogs) and the smoky fire felt good. Summer ends with Labor Day in the Northland.
The yellow transparent apples are falling now from trees around abandoned homesteads, among the first apples to ripen.
Not being a lawyer, but having been both a member of several unions as well as a supervisor and representative of management, I believe I have some relevant insight on labor issues and therefore on Labor Day. Here are some of my thoughts.
I believe labor and management relations and legal issues revolve around the exercise of rights by both parties and every individual involved on either side.
I believe workers have the right, but not the obligation, to join together in unions to bargain collectively for wages, benefits and working conditions with an employer.
However, I believe no worker should forced or obligated to be a union member. The basic human and constitutional right to associate freely has an converse; the right not to associate. I believe the closed shop, which demands that all employees belong to a union, is an unconstitutional deprivation of a human right, and the "check off" of union dues by an employer or the government is an illegal appropriation of the wages of the worker. Whether or not to pay union dues is a right of the individual.
Unions and their members have a right to strike against an employer. For, just as all individuals have a right to work all have a right not to work, whether in association with other union members or not, unless that right has been given up by contract. A logical corollary is the right of the employer to lock the doors of the work place in a contract dispute or fire an employee who refuses to work. Strikes and lockouts are destructive and expensive, but not as damaging as long-term unresolved labor/management problems, which can often be solved only through confrontation. Of course the government has the legal right to intervene in these disputes if the public safety is threatened.
Government employees are almost always covered by civil service laws, which gives them the basic rights normally associated with union membership. To allow workers covered by civil service laws to unionize and to strike is to grant them supra-legal rights, and jeopardizes the public interest.
Every individual has a basic right to the rewards of his labor, physical or intellectual. To be denied that right is slavery to one degree or another, and is unconstitutional, prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Nor does the government have the right to confiscate the rewards of my labor through unjust, unequal or punitive taxation,
Recognizing the dignity of labor, whether that of the employee or of the entrepreneur, is essential to civilized society, and it is the duty of society and government to do its best to provide the opportunity to work to all who are able to do so, and economic and social theories and policies that abrogate the economic freedom of the individual and his rights to the fruits of his labor are contrary to human nature and the constitution of the United States of America.
Enjoy your Labor Day, and the exercise of your rights as an American.
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