Labor Day Observations

How dumb does he think we are? Such a great Labor Day holiday for labor! In his speech pertaining to Labor Day, President Reagan began to enumerate how many people are employed. Not one word about the unemployed number of people, the increasing number of homeless, the setback for labor since he fired the air traffic controllers, and destroyed the Professional Air Traffic Controllers union a few years ago, when they struck for better conditions. How often we think of that period every time we hear of a plane accident.

Labor Day will be a real holiday for labor when the unemployed will have jobs, when the homeless will have a proper place to live, when labor unions will be honored for having given us the 8-hour day, for living wages, safety conditions on the job, child labor laws, equal pay for women, health care, pensions for retirees, child care at the work site, on and on forward.

For these conditions, Mr. President, men and women have died fighting in the mines, mills, and factories, and unions will not disappear with one fell swoop of the hand.

LENA KORNFELD

Los Angeles