A football metaphor for Labor Day

Labor unions are the offensive linemen of America -- they do all the heavy lifting and get none of the respect.  I heard someone say on the radio yesterday, "isn't it enshrined in the Constitution that I get to sleep in on Saturday?"  He was joking, of course, but the fact is, you can thank unions for that.  And for the fact that your child doesn't have to work, and for many other benefits like health insurance that we pretty much take for granted right now.

Labor unions have been getting a bum rap for years -- historically, the organized fight for workers' rights has kept this country a democracy when more radical elements wanted to take it into socialism or even communism.  We tend to forget how the American middle class was created -- and what it takes to preserve it.  Blue collar work no longer pays what it should, but white collar work increasingly doesn't either.  And government employees -- the people whose pensions are under attack at the state level across the country -- are the people who make it possible for so much of our democracy to function.  Where would we be without public schools, universities and community colleges?  What about highways and bridges built with public money?  Infrastructure is what Pres. Obama was talking about when he said his now infamous "you didn't build that" comment -- and without people working government jobs and taking home a decent paycheck -- and with some guarantee of decent benefits -- there wouldn't be much infrastructure around the country.  So here's to the people we celebrate this Labor Day weekend -- the workers of this country, the people who built it, and the unions who fight for their rights.