Here is pretty much anything you would want to know about Labor Day, labor union membership, data on work, income, gender equity and more:
Here is
a list of the biggest unions. About 12% of workers now are union members -- flat from last year but down from 20% in 1983.
InfoPlease says:
Five states had union membership rates over 20% in 2005: New York (26.1%), Hawaii (25.8%), Alaska (22.8%), and Michigan and New Jersey (20.5% each). These states have been among the most unionized since at least 1995. North Carolina and South Carolina continued to report the lowest union membership rates, 2.9% and 2.3%, respectively.
The largest numbers of union members lived in California (2.4 million) and New York (2.1 million). Just over half (7.9 million) of the 15.7 million union members in the U.S. lived in six states (California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey), although these states accounted for slightly less than one-third of wage and salary employment nationally.
What occupations are likely to need the most new workers in the near future?
What occupations are likely to lose the most jobs in the near future?
What are the deadliest jobs?
What jobs pay the most and the least money?
The $15 Athletic Shoe -- $10 Warm-ups
Here is a nice back-to-school story.
The New York Knicks point guard, Stephon Marbury has launched a low-cost alternative to athletic shoes endorsed by his professional peers that can cost $80 to $200 a pair. The question is, will they catch on with celebrity obsessed kids?
NPR not only field-tested the shoes by giving them to some street-ball players, they actually cut the shoes in half and had a shoe expert compare the shoes with the more expensive models. The playground players that NPR interviewed were NOT impressed. This would be GREAT TV story and a nice newspaper piece too. Here is the Starbury website.
Slate reports:
Marbury isn't the first basketball player to put his name on cheaper shoes. In 2004, Shaquille O'Neal's Dunkman line of shoes retailed at Payless for $40 a pair. But what distinguishes Marbury's shoe is its extreme cheapness combined with his vow to actually use it in his professional life. "I'm going to wear the shoe on court. I'm going to wear the sneakers all season," he said
The story went on to explain:
Will his shoe put him at a competitive disadvantage against NBA opponents who hawk and wear $150 sneakers? Fifteen-dollar sneakers may be adequate for kids running around a schoolyard, but against LeBron? Earlier today, I picked up a pair of $10 Starbury SXMs and road-tested them, juking several editors, executing an awkward 360 at the Xerox machine, and busting out a few crossovers in the elevator. They seemed to work fine. But if my job involved covering ankle-breaker Dwayne Wade, and if my ability to earn millions of dollars hinged on protecting my fragile feet and ankles, then I'd probably want a little more arch support. In fact, I'd probably want to wear the best, highest-performance equipment money can buy. Not even Marbury is making that claim about his shoes.
And rather than affiliate with a sleek, design-conscious company like Nike or a mega-retailer like Target, Marbury has chosen to cast his lot with a scrappy upstart. The Starbury line is available only at the up-and-coming cheapo apparel retailer Steve & Barry's.
Steve & Barry's started with a single store at the University of Pennsylvania in 1985, expanded to other college campuses, and then to malls. Today, there are about 130 stores, with six opening in August and September alone. This piece in Business Week explains how Steven Shore and Barry Prevor have managed to undercut Wal-Mart and Target by scoring great deals from landlords at crappy malls, buying directly from overseas, and offering only house brands. The result: absurdly low prices. Walk through the aisles and you'll shake your head in disbelief: polo shirts, rugby shirts, hats, university T-shirts, bulky hooded sweatshirts, jeans and khakis, shorts, warm-up jackets, all for less than $10. You could clothe your family for a year for $100. If Steve & Barry can figure out how to make a few pennies on each sale, they can certainly figure out how to make sure Marbury gets a penny or two.
High School Athletes Trash Talking Online
This is one heck of a story if you can get local with it. It is about cyber-sportsmanship.
The Boston Globe discovered that high schools are getting serious about trying to stop athletes from trash-talking opponents online. Some schools are including language in this year’s team handbooks that says:
Student athletes will not engage in any type of communications (Internet) with other athletes or fans that provokes violence or that could be construed as taunting or harassment," states the handbook.
In 2003, a federal judge ruled against such a school rule because she said it was too vague.
Maybe this is just the natural evolution of the coarsening of America. In 2004, a survey of 4,200 high school athletes found that about half of the boys questioned think it is acceptable to "trash-talk" a defender after every score.
The Austin American-Statesman has a "smash your Rival" interactive game which is sort of like Whack-a-Mole.
Rooting out Feral Pigs
From Florida to Michigan and out to Hawaii, feral (wild) pig herds just keep spreading. Feral hogs now live in 31 states and they just keep growing into a bigger problem. They root up forests and create a general mess. What’s worse, these wild pigs have lots of babies. Michigan Public Radio reporter Brian Bull reported:
Feral pigs have appeared in several states including Oregon, California, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Recently they started showing up Minnesota. It was first thought wild swine might've crossed frozen waterways from Wisconsin. Wisconsin wildlife biologist Dave Matheys says the growing problem is more likely due to hunters using pigs for hunting practice:
"Some bear hunters who train their hounds, train them on pigs, and don't recapture the pig. It escapes, or the hounds aren't trained thoroughly enough or they just don't want to recover it, so the pig or pigs remain out in the wild."
Feral pigs damage the habitat of ground-nesting birds, kill small deer, and despite their shy nature, have even attacked people. Matheys says the wild pigs are prolific, and eat almost anything, making them hard to monitor and control. In some states wildlife managers have declared an open season on the pigs.
eNature.com explains how all this got started:
Native to Europe and Asia, the feral pig first appeared in North America in 1893, when a herd of 50 animals was brought from Germany’s Black Forest to a hunting preserve in New Hampshire’s Blue Mountains. Russian Wild Boars were released in 1910 and 1912 on a North Carolina preserve near the Tennessee border; in 1925, near Monterey, California; and a few years later on Santa Cruz Island, off the California coast. Some of these animals escaped from preserves, and many of their progeny bred with feral descendants of domestic pigs. The pure-blooded feral pig is still found in the wild in North Carolina, in Tennessee, in parts of California, and in preserves in other states. Elsewhere North America’s wild swine are hybrids or pigs descended from purely domestic stock. Especially active at dawn and dusk, the feral pig is a fast runner and a good swimmer. It usually trots from one foraging area to another, then slows to a walk.
In Texas alone, there are an estimated 1.5 million feral hogs. Where the hogs have been spotted, landowners report an average of $7,515 worth of damage from the herds. There is no doubt the problem is growing.
Here is a USDA page with tons of resources.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
