Labor Day brings out sharp divisions
Farmingdale State College is a four-year SUNY school located on Route 110 and Conklin Avenue. Credit: Alexi Knock
The U.S. ideological divide feels especially sharp on a Labor Day when unemployment hovers nationally at 9.1 percent.
In Texas, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison published an op-ed noting the holiday and lamenting the jobless number -- tying it, per GOP talking points, to the White House approach on taxes and regulation. The sole mention she makes of labor unions is that the "lucky ones" among them were exempted from the health-insurance law signed by President Barack Obama.
In Chicago, urban activists rally today to voice forebodings about a U.S. trade agreement now under negotiation between the Obama White House and Pacific Rim nations from Vietnam to Peru. Protesters declare this "NAFTA of the Pacific" could bolster multinational corporate interests -- at the expense of organized labor and the environment.
For perspective: The first big Labor Day was observed on this day in 1882 by the Central Labor Union of New York, Brooklyn and New Jersey. Twelve years later, during a national railroad strike, 13 workers were killed and 57 wounded in violent clashes with U.S. marshals and soldiers. President Grover Cleveland and Congress soon made Labor Day a national holiday as a conciliatory move.
LI BATTLE LINES: As the usual 10-year redistricting hearings go on statewide, the State Senate's Democratic minority criticized the fact that the task force assigned to draft the lines is scheduled to hold but a single Long Island hearing -- at Farmingdale State College, Suffolk, on Oct. 5. Michael Murphy, spokesman for Minority Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn), said: "Residents of Nassau deserve to be heard in the same way residents throughout the state have been heard. Given the recent court decision to overturn the Republicans' power grab [in the county legislature] there's even more reason to have a hearing in Nassau."
Scott Reif, spokesman for Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), replied Friday that the task force "is holding more than a dozen public hearings and at least one in every region of the state, including Long Island. Farmingdale was selected because it is centrally located, and accessible to residents of both Nassau and Suffolk counties. We remain committed to a process that is bipartisan and transparent. Anyone who suggests otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about."
