A grim picture for workers on Labor Day

It’s a tough time to celebrate the American worker. This coming Monday marks the third consecutive Labor Day with an unemployment rate topping 9% and 14 million Americans looking for work. The median unemployed worker has been jobless for five months, and the government announced that the economy added no jobs in August. The past year has been especially tumultuous for the labor movement, from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s defanging of his state’s public-sector union to the recent strike by 45,000 Verizon that ended with a whimper instead of a bang. Even leaders in reliably Democratic states like California, Connecticut, and New York, are wresting concessions from government employees in the face of local budget deficits for the foreseeable future.

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On Labor Day, a grim picture for workers