I've always thought that an AFL-CIO slogan, "the people who brought you the weekend," is about as good a line as can be imagined. It's tight, concise and carries a big message, a reminder that as tough as work can be in the early 21st century, it was a heck of a lot tougher for our grandparents or great-grandparents.

It's easy to forget the historic contributions of the nation's union movement, during this era of the individual, when the Internet is creating desktop entrepreneurs in droves and people are as likely to be focused on a "Survivor" contestant in Gabon as on their next-door neighbor.

Organized labor has been losing members for decades. In Maine, unions represented 11.7 percent of workers in 2007. That compares to 21 percent in 1983.

And across the country, unions are very reluctant to strike because they fear that they will be replaced. The fear has been there ever since the President Reagan ousted the air traffic controllers in 1981, and closer to home, many mill workers in Jay, Maine, lost their jobs during the strike at International Paper.

These days, most of the public disputes between labor and management take place in the political world.

Right now, business interests are attacking efforts to change the method by which workers can vote to organize into collective bargaining units, with organized labor arguing the other side nosily.

And, of course, the two senators battling for the White House are the darlings of unions and conservative business groups.

For those people who want a peek at the history of organized labor in Maine, though, during this Labor Day weekend, there are a lot of opportunities.

Maine labor historian Charles Scontras, a research associate at the University of Maine's Bureau of Labor Education, has written several books about the topic.

Also, in Augusta, at the Central Maine Commerce Center, you can see a mural that depicts the history of labor in Maine. The Department of Labor, with assistance from the Maine Arts Commission, commissioned the work by Tremont artist Judy Taylor, with $60,000 in federal construction funds.

The mural opened for public viewing Aug. 22.

The previous month, a dozen containers with letters, ledgers and hundreds of historic articles, going back to 1864, were donated to the University of Maine's Fogler Library. It was a donation from United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 1996. More information is available from the library.

In the meantime, here's a timeline we ran in the newspaper with some key points in organized labor history:

LABOR MILESTONES IN MAINE
1636 - First economics-based ''strike'' in what would be the United States occurs on Richmond Island off Maine's coast. Workmen and fishermen protest the withholding of their wages for a year, fall into mutiny and desert en masse.
1815 - Maine Charitable Mechanic Association organizes.
1831 - Maine's first labor party organizes in Portland, The Working Men's Institution. Group raises concerns about workers' social, economic and political status.
1841 - First strike among women workers happens in Saco, where between 400 and 5,000 women of York Manufacturing Co. go on strike. Strike fails.
1848 - Maine Legislature passes its first 10-hour workday law, necessitated by longer hours instituted with technological advantage of better artificial light from whale oil lamps.
1891 - Maine State Federation of Labor organizes, reports membership of 20,000 and 108 local organizations.
1891 - Labor Day becomes legal holiday in Maine.
1907 - Country's first union of fishermen organizes in Maine. Lobster Fishermen's International Protective Association members refuse to sell lobsters until they negotiate a favorable price.
1915 - Workmen's Compensation law enacted in Maine.
1926 - Maine's longest strike, which began in 1921, ends. Workers at all the Maine mills of International Paper Co. in Rumford, Livermore Falls, Riley, Solon and Orono strike after a 21 percent wage reduction and the declaration of an open shop policy by the company.
1934 - Country's largest strike, the general textile strike, hits Maine mills. Maine is one of 16 states in which the National Guard is called out to protect property and act as law enforcement.
1956 - Maine state organizations of the AFL and CIO merge, create Maine State Federated Labor Council, AFL-CIO, elect Benjamin Dorsky president, a position he holds until 1979. Membership estimated at 80,000 to 85,000.
1971 - Maine Human Rights Act passes, protecting workers from discrimination due to sex, race, color, religion, national origin of ancestry, mental or physical disability or age.
1987 - Workers at International Paper in Jay strike from June 16 until Oct. 10, 1988. Strike gets huge publicity, illustrates tensions between local interests and out-of-state corporations and other dynamics. Local 14 decertifies in 1992.
2005 - Unions band together with community and political leaders to successfully fight the Pentagon's plan to close the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.
2006 - Maine State Employees Association pulls out of the AFL-CIO, following schism at national level of AFL-CIO.
Sources: Published accounts; ''Time-Line of Selected Highlights of Maine Labor History: 1636-2003,'' by Charles A. Scontras, published by the Bureau of Labor Education, University of Maine, 2003

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