Op-Ed: “Not Much to Celebrate on Labor Day 2011”

The Portsmouth Herald puts the latest attacks on New Hampshire workers in historical context and concludes “there is not much to celebrate on Labor Day 2011.”

The rights and life quality of American workers, once the envy of all the world, are under siege in New Hampshire, Maine and across the nation.

The history of labor is written in blood, sweat and sacrifice. Over the past 150 years, thousands of brave souls have given their lives to end the inhumane practices of child labor, 15-hour shifts and deadly working conditions. Living wages were won not through quiet and respectful dialogue, but through hard-fought and often violent strikes.

The labor battles today are just the latest rounds in a fight waged through the decades by young women in Dover and Exeter mills, granite cutters in Concord, street railway workers in Berlin, Amoskeag textile workers in Manchester or, in more recent history, striking teachers in Plaistow’s Timberlane School District.