Let us always remember our brothers and sisters in the labor movement in the 20th Century who were often eaten and and sometimes killed by the mine owners, factory owners, and the national guard....for trying to organize so that we could have an 8 hour day, paid vacations, health care, free weekends, decent working condition, and child labaor laws.

Yeah right RevGerald, they've turned Maine into a real workers paradise. Explain that to the people in all the towns where the mills have closed while the get ready to freeze to death this winter.

In a search of Maine news outlets, how good it is to see one objective report about the issues behind Labor Day and a simple report of what those involved believed, worked for, and cared about.

The unions gave us the weekend, the 40 hour week, the idea of health benefits, holidays, and so much more.

Where unions are strong, all workers, union and nonunion, benefit.

Where unions are weak, wages, jobs, benefits, supports systems of all kinds are weak.

In searching for a place to spend the day Monday, I did find a couple celebrations that honored the true spirit of the day, one in Brewer which is covered so well by you, another in Lewiston, closer to my home, and went there to a SEIU union hall where I spent the afternoon among people who truly cared for each other.

GeoWaldman

Jack McKay made his speech (per the BDN article) sound as though he knew everything about everything, and the comments by this "RevGerald" and "David889327", seem to coincide with Mr. McKay's mind-set. "Up with Organized Labor", was a platform for McKay in Brewer over Labor Day! Listen, if Mr. MaKay is going around describing the Social Security System and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, as being incepted and brought-on by organized labor and which forced the United States into organizing these federal departments, then Mr. MaKay needs to understand one thing...and that is NOT to tell people in public forums how good organized labor is to the country and fabricate consummerate stories seducing unwary listeners into believing that Mr. McKay is telling the gospel truth. OSHA was signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, and is a department under the United States Department of Labor, and OSHA was signed into law by Congress under the OSHAAct by Nixon. It is a general workforce concession, brought on by national injury statistics that brought attention to the federal government (without labor's heavy-handed efforts) that showed above-average injuries to workers with relation to machinery not (not in all cases and industries) having guards covering all moving parts. This was in 1970, and the federal government decided to incept an agency to handle these issues. The federal regulations went on from there...PPE; permissible exposure limits. Lockout/tagout. Confined space in the 1990's. HAZCOM; hazard communication...1983. PSM; process safety management. Bloodborne Pathogens in 1990. Excavations and trenches later on. These, and a lot of other standards were issued by other corporations and organizations in 1968 and before...but organized labor did not effectuate to the whole, and big picture of OSHA all by itself. In fact, organized labor simply was a small part of the US-situated corporation's as well as to include the federal government's decision to approach the decision-making fed's to organize a federal safety commission. In addition, the United States had organized its own internal labor entity, the US Department of Labor. Of course, organized labor has always been in a lobbyist mode, however, wanting this, demanding that, and just getting "lip service" in return. The US can function just fine, without you, organized labor. Organized labor acts much like your big brother would act if some alleged bully pushed you around in the school yard...and then you send your big brother off after that bully, threatening, screaming and intimidating him. Since 1968, the US government has approached manufacturer's to make all their equipment and consumer products with consumer safety in mind. The reason is quite simple...the insurance company's covering these company's and their workers, do not want to pay out claims from subrogation or direct law suits by the workers. The cost-benefit statistics side with the cost point of view, and the benefits enhance themselves as a result in a profitable way to the company. Losses can reach into the billions of dollars! The cost to a company with a high accident incidence rate and severity rate is subject to increased outpay for worker-compensation insurance. Then, as a far-fetched result, companies, along with their own safety regulations, standards, had to add Safety Directors to their organizations, (usually a low-to-mid level supervisor) to be ground-zero operatives so OSHA regulations and the company's safety regulations cn be complied with. Organized labor adds negatively to inter-company and intra-company operations, and take much time in meetings, demands, threats, pullouts and the like. What Mr. McKay has been broadcasting is that his statements can, as a result, be injurous to people, and may have a dangerous effect on some company's operations and people's attitudes towards labor in itself. Mr. MaKay...you are trying to impress people, and sell organized labor to the people of Maine, and unfortunately, you used the Labor Day forum in Brewer (which is okay, as free speech is part of our democratic society in the USA) to voice your opinions...which are totally anachronistic in nature. Unions had their time and space in history and now, obviously, your oratories are seemingly desperate with respect to the world view of disabling unions within the workforce.

As a footnote to my previous posting, it is truly scary and unfortunate some of Maine's industries are faltering. Numbers of families are facing one of the worse winter seasons of the present times because of circumstances their former corporation underwent...and possibly will not be able to mention in total right now. I had to personally remove myself from my much-beloved state (Maine) to relocate out west or down south many years ago, with brief interums back into Bangor. Profitable investments and key jobs kept me financially quite stable, but to those without such opportunities, I would want to believe that the State of Maine government will do everything possible along with the federal government in a major relief-effort to assist all those families in desperation this year, and local charities and companies and religions groups will offer their assistance as well. Remember, it is nothing to be embarassed about when your family is in need of heating the home and feeding the children.

I have to apoligize to the BDN for this third web posting on this issue, however I must make this last donation. I was just finished speaking to one of my friends who worked with me in California, Jim Blackie. I sent him all the postings that were sent in by both Mr. McKay, representing the Maine Labor Unions and from the comments of the readers via fax, (it would not go e-meil for some reason) after I copied them from my computer. He said he had to telephone me, direct. In his estimation, Jim, a retired high-level management employee at (I cannot name the company, although it is a major corporation in the US, in the entertainment industry with a union that was legally barred from operating in that company) the same company I also was employed by as a managerial level employee, said the problems in Maine seem to be two-fold. One, that industry in Maine is needing retrofitting, from the older type of manufacturing processes to a newer mode, (take the Eastern Fine Paper Mill in Brewer and the Millinocket Mill, as two examples) and that the companies are not making or realizing enough profit, (possibly as a result of foreign manufacturing and imports/exports and general taxation, along with the union's demands for increased pay, benefits, and internal operations) whereby some companies are pulling-in their efforts to be more cost-efficient, and two, that the unions have created such an internal mess in some companies by their infiltration, hardball tatics and by their interferences in general corporate operations with their brainwashing and pestering the personnel and company officials to the point of near distraction to believe union affiliation is the way to go. Jim was emphatic in his conversation with me that he visualizes the unions destroying the exact same concept they seem to be purveying to their members. Maine unions, as well as most unions in the US, seem to not understand that they simply are unable to do much of anything to keep a company open, or by layoffs, or consolidations, or by mergers, or by a complete sale of a company to a domestic or overseas entity, They raise so much hell when something out of their control happens, and attempt to look "big and powerful" to the union membership, that they actually create more ice to backslide on, in view of their prime, intended efforts. Although this is just a comment I had to pass on, I do not mean to take up all the space allowable for the News to publish or cite this posting. Sorry, too, Jack McKay...but you, too, have someone to report to on your progress of maintaining union leadership and membership for Maine. I wonder just who that person or organization is? The AFL-CIO, or some other organized effort?