Free Republic

Your favorite songs about working, jobs, bosses, etc.

As long as I can remember, unions have attacked as “scabs” those willing to accept work for wages and conditions those unions reject, even if it involves crossing union picket lines. In fact, that usage goes back centuries, from English slang for a mean, low, “scurvy” rascal or scoundrel. As Stephanie Smith put it in Household Words: From blemish…to strikebreaker, the history of the word scab…shows a displacement of meaning from the visceral or physical to the moral register…Just as a scab is a physical lesion, the strikebreaking scab disfigures the social body of labor. Those union attacks have included...

Thanks to the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the federal government clarified that it is free to work with whichever organization is best able to achieve the government’s goals, providing optimal services to those in need. The guidelines, recently issued by the DOL, explain that under current law the federal government may not discriminate against religious contractors or subcontractors. Instead, all contractors, religious and non-religious, must be permitted to compete for federal contracts on an equal playing field. A wide variety of charitable work across the country is done through government contracts with various...

There was a Scottish painter named Smokey MacGregor who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further. As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the local church decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of one of their biggest buildings. Smokey put in a bid, and, because his price was so low, he got the job. So he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, and buying the paint and, yes,...

Who would have thought a few years ago that the biggest problem facing the labor market today would be a lack of workers — not a lack of jobs? As recently as 2012, the unemployment rate was above 8 percent, more than twice its current rate. Since President Trump's election, nearly 4 million new net jobs have been created. The unemployment rate has tied lows unseen since the Vietnam War, when men were being drafted to fight. Black and Latino unemployment rates are at record lows. And for the first time in recorded history, there are more jobs available than...

With unemployment at 3.8 percent, its lowest level in many years, the labor market seems healthy. But that number hides a perplexing anomaly: The percentage of men who are neither working nor looking for work has risen substantially over the past several decades. The issue, in economist’s jargon, is labor force participation. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys households, every adult is put into one of three categories. Those who have a job are employed. Those who are not working but are searching for a job are unemployed. Those who are neither working nor looking for work are counted...

When you drove down California Street through San Francisco's Richmond District in the 1970s, one house made a stronger impression than most others. This was not because the house was an architectural marvel. It was a small, cookie-cutter Victorian. No, it stood out because it was painted black. From sidewalk to rooftop, every inch was coated in a uniform darkness. Its owner in those days was Anton LeVey, author of "The Satanic Bible"; and, years later, when it was about to be torn down, the San Francisco Chronicle would refer to it as "the building that once housed San Francisco's...

Well, this is certainly interesting. A group of Democrats, led by Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker have filed legislation designed to essentially gut the ability of individual states to pass right-to-work laws and hand back iron-fisted control of the workplace environment to labor unions. The fact that Democrats oppose right-to-work laws is nothing new, nor is the reality that labor unions fund a large part of their election efforts. But do you notice anything that those names I listed have in common? Every one of them has been repeatedly mentioned as a possible 2020 presidential candidate....

In 1920, under Bolshevik rule, Russia was the first country to legalize abortion up to birth without restrictions. The method by Lenin’s political faction was a way to destroy the family unit and to free women into the workforce. The Bolsheviks even designed the machine for suction abortions that is still used widely in abortion clinics across America. Joseph Stalin outlawed the practice in 1936, and it remained illegal in the country until after his death in 1953. Until recently, Russian women reportedly had seven abortions over their lifetime. In 2003, BBC reported there were 13 abortions for every 10...

Celebrated leading visionary bridge engineer Atorod Azizinamini, whose ABC (Accelerated Bridge Construction) technology was used to build the bridge that collapsed yesterday on Florida International University’s campus, was named an Obama era Department of Transportation ‘Champion of Change’ in 2015. The event in which Azizinamini was awarded ‘Champion of Change’ status was webcast live at whitehouse.gov/live, no longer online. Much will be made in coming days that FIGG Bridge Group designed the bridge and that it was constructed by MCM Construction, in the aftermath of the bridge’s collapse. But it was Azizinamini bridge technology all the way: “This project is...

We hear a lot about income inequality today. Bernie Sanders nearly displaced the established democrat, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 presidential primaries by being the more vociferous opponent income inequality. Scores of economists—armed with charts and graphs—argue that rising inequality will lead to the breakdown of society. In their article “The Unmet Promise of Equality,” Fred Harris and Alan Curtis write, “Today, the top 1 percent receive 52 percent of all new income. Rich people are healthier and live longer. They get a better education, which produces greater gains in income.”1 In his article “Income Inequality in the U.S. Is...

Critics say NLRB watchdog's conflict of interest memo unfairly targets GOP appointees A Trump-appointed labor arbiter is under fire for reversing one of the Obama administration's most controversial rulings, leading to a conflict of interest complaint that could hinder future appointees. William Emanuel joined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency in charge of settling workplace disputes and overseeing union elections, in September, giving the GOP control of the five-member board for the first time in a decade. The Republican majority wasted little time in reversing some of the Obama administration's most consequential rulings. The biggest turnaround came in...

Jeremy Corbyn warned a Soviet-backed spy about British intelligence activity at the climax of the Cold War, according to secret documents. The Labour leader met the Czech agent at least three times after being vetted by communist handlers in 1986, papers reveal.

Calling proposed immigration reform legislation “devastating” to Western Growers members, association president and CEO Tom Nassif alerted members that the group will work to stop it from becoming law. The immigration reform package, the Secure America’s Future Act, was authored by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. House leaders passed a continuing resolution on Jan. 18 that will fund the government for another four weeks. Facing a midnight deadline Jan. 19, the Senate had still not passed any bill to keep the government operating. According to Nassif, the House passage of the continuing resolution included a commitment to vote on...

The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday unveiled new rules that would allow small businesses and entrepreneurs to join together to form their own health insurance pools. The rules, which will be open to a 60 day public comment period, are a direct response to President Donald Trump's executive order on health care, which would expand health associations and allow people participating in the groups to buy insurance that does not meet all of the coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. "Under the proposal, small businesses and sole proprietors would have more freedom to band...

Refugees, which is it: Meatpacker laborers or helping the “oppressed?” Posted by Ann Corcoran on January 4, 2018 Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum tries both arguments in USA Today. Ali Noorani on twitter: @anoorani https://twitter.com/anoorani?lang=en I wasn’t planning to post on one more hysterical story about Trump refugee numbers being low and thus decimating the refugee contractor industry, but I can’t resist mentioning one little bit of the story entitled: Refugee admissions to U.S. plummet in 2017 Before I get to Noorani, Mark Krikorian summed it up with this: “Elections have consequences,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of...

The Justice Department announced today that it filed a lawsuit against Crop Production Services Inc. (Crop Production), headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, for allegedly discriminating against U.S. workers in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The complaint alleges that in 2016, Crop Production discriminated against at least three United States citizens by refusing to employ them as seasonal technicians in El Campo, Texas, because Crop Production preferred to hire temporary foreign workers under the H-2A visa program. According to the department’s complaint, Crop Production imposed more burdensome requirements on U.S. citizens than it did on H-2A visa workers to...

Mike Rowe has had many jobs: actor, podcast host, even opera singer. But he is best known as a serial apprentice, participating in over 300 grubby gigs on the TV show “Dirty Jobs” and its successor “Somebody’s Gotta Do It.” Affably working alongside people who do the unglamorous tasks that keep our economy humming, such as castrating lambs or laundering tons of dirty diapers, Rowe’s wit and wisdom have made him a favorite with viewers. But over time, he realized that something decidedly un-funny was happening in our country. A narrative that college is the only path to success began...

The DACA issue compels us to confront our time’s either-or: patriotism or multiculturalism? We can’t have it both ways; which shall it be? Though it would have been unthinkable at any other period in history, most of the intellectual class chooses multiculturalism. Their preference, that is to say, is not for the interests of their own country, but for those of non-Americans. This is bizarre, for while patriotism, like so much else in human affairs, is a mixed thing—often crossing over into a crass and dangerous nationalism, for example—it does refer to actual practices and customs, embodied values whereby people...

Start up the grill. Get the burgers and chicken going. And start imbibing. You deserve it, according to a new work study. “We’re hard workers. We deserve the day off,” says Liz Bagot, a spokeswoman for NationalToday.com, which conducted the survey of 2,000 Americans. It turns out the average American works harder than our Japanese counterparts or the average European worker. “Statistics show that Americans work longer hours than the majority of other countries — 137 hours per year more than Japanese, 260 per year more than in the UK,” according to the study. By the way, when the comparison...