Consider Working America

I hope you will check out the site in the link below. You do NOT have to agree with unions all of the time, but without them, American workers will head in the direction of becoming serfs. If you thought serfdom died long ago, look around. It is no coincidence that income disparity has grown so much as worker organizations have declined. The wealthy and their sidekicks, mainly Republicans, but some Democrats, too, have convinced many Americans to support legislation (like huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans) that is NOT in the interest of those many Americans, but definitely in the interest of the few. Even after more than thirty years of prevailing conservative thought, we still hear how tough life is for those upper income people. Contrary to what we have been told would happen by "unleashing" American investors and business people, the country has gone down hill, as millions struggle to keep from losing ground. The "interests" are firmly in control, and with all of the anti-union talk and action, they intend to take an even firmer grip on the nation.

Again, you do not have to agree with union positions on everything; that's part of our system, give and take, but now the conservative idea is to strip away the "give" part, and just "take." They want investors and the super rich to have "freedom," but they don't want the same thing for average Americans.

http://www.workingamerica.org/

WORD HISTORY:

Work-This goes back to Indo European "werg," and its derivative, "wergom," with the meaning "do, work." This gave Old Germanic the noun form "werkan," which then gave Anglo-Saxon "weorc" (seems there was also a dialect form "worc"), with the same general meaning: "action to accomplish some task," and even "to make things." The spelling changed by Middle English and has remained the same since then. Later, the place where "work" was done (or things "made") became known as a "works;" thus we have had work places like "steel works," "iron works," etc. Myself, I never wanted one of those places, but some people kept insisting to "give him the works." Hmm, I guess that's what they meant by that? The noun form is quite common in the other Germanic languages: German has "Werk," and also "Werke" for "works;" Dutch has "werk;" Frisian has "wurk/wirk;" Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic have "verk;" Danish has "vaerk." Note: some Low German has "woakj."

The verb form naturally also traces back to the same Indo European "werg" and Old Germanic "werkan," which gave Old Germanic the verb form "wurkijanan," with the meaning "to work, to function, to make things go, to operate, to make." This gave Anglo-Saxon/Old English the verb "wyrcan" (also as "wircan" in some dialects). German has "wirken," some Low German has "wirkje;" Dutch has "werken," Swedish has "yrka."