MA(Y) DAY

Tuesday has become MA day. I was considering and have now decided to continue with a(n) MA Course in Performance Writing. Henceforth words have to p-e-r-f-o-r-m.

Linguists stick to language ages as we get older, so I’m too-old.

If any of this has any meaning for you, forget it. Try saying the following sentence very quickly in French and you’ll get the idea. You must give the first word a slightly Latin twist.

Sea salt  Of the fields

However, in keeping with the e.vent@theday.com I came across the following curiosity:

Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar on the 5^th October 1582, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

Detail of the tomb of Pope Gregory XIII celebrating 

the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.

And yet another Black Friday of which there are some 23 of more or less historical significance.

Hollywood Black Friday is the name given, in the history of organized labour in the United States, to the 5^th of October 1945. On that date, a six-month strike by the set decorators represented by the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) boiled over into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers’' studios in Burbank, California. The strikes helped the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and led to the eventual break up of the CSU and reorganization of the then rival International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, (IATSE) leadership.

The stated purpose of the Taft-Hartley Act is:

To promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations whose activities affect commerce, to define and proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which affect commerce and are inimical to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce.

The amendments enacted in Taft-Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or "unfair labour practices”, on the part of unions to the NLRB, which had previously only prohibited "unfair labor practices" committed by employers. The Taft–Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, , secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Union shops were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass "right to work laws”  that outlawed union shops. Furthermore, the executive branch of the Federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike "imperiled the national health or safety," a test that has been interpreted broadly by the courts.

It is curious how the phrase right to work means shutting out a labour union rather than preventing an employer from blacklisting a union member.

I must remember that the words ‘right to work’ must work.

I hope you enjoy the performance.