May Day is celebrated on the first day of May each year. Depending on where you live, May Day can mean a lot of things. It can just be a day of festivals and pagan dancing around the Maypole. The Maypole is created by covering a tall wooden poll with flowers and greenery. Then the pole is raised up and the celebration begins with dancers frolicking around the pole with colorful ribbons. Another May Day tradition is leaving a basket of flowers or candy on the doorstep of someone you are interested in.

However, May Day isn’t all fun and games; it is also a day of solidarity of the labor force.

Many cities have marches where workers are encouraged to take the day off and join in solidarity against “The Man.” In various labor movements around the world, May Day is synonymous with International Workers’ Day - a day of celebrations, marches and other organized activities of workers and labor unions.

Over the last few years, there have been some problems with the May Day marches in some major cities, like Los Angeles. In 2007, the May Day pro-illegal immigration rally in MacArthur Park in L.A. turned into a melee between a group of about 50 protesters and LAPD. The protesters threw water bottles and oranges at the police. The melee was broken up when the officers began firing foam rubber projectiles at the protesters.

Though there are May Day activities scheduled in Los Angeles again this year, the police are expected to be on alert.

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Northrop Grumman Corp. was awarded a contract worth more than a billion dollars from the United States Navy to build unmanned spy planes. The company will hire workers in many cities across the United States to help in the project, including 1,700 workers in San Diego, California.

While there will be many high paying jobs in the project, the work is only guaranteed until 2014. At that point, the contract between Northrop Grumman Corp. and the Navy will expire. Over the life of the contract, the Navy hopes that around 70 unmanned spy planes can be produced.

If you would like to work on a spy plane project and you think you have the qualifications, now is the time to send in your resume. You should also make sure that the relatively short lifespan of the job would work for you. While six years of work is a long time, you may instead prefer a job that has better long-term job security.

In addition to San Diego, other cities in the United States that will be hiring workers for this project include St. Augustine, Florida and Bethpage, New York.

Photo credit: Northrop Grumman

If you work for United Airlines, you couldn’t have liked the news from earlier this week when UAL Corp., United Airlines’ parent company, posted a first quarter loss of more than $500 million. With the company’s market value plummeting, more than a thousand job cuts were announced.

United Airlines pointed to mounting fuel costs as one of the main reasons for the loss. In addition to cutting jobs, the airline also plans to cut the number of flights they serve on a daily basis. The job cuts and flight changes are tentatively planned to take place before the end of 2008.

The next step for United Airlines could be merging with another airline if they can’t find a way to slow their losses. In recent years, a number of airlines have either been forced to merge or close their doors. Southwest Airlines is currently the only airline that consistently turns a profit.

Are you employed by United Airlines? If so, it’d be wise to start coming up with a fallback plan. Start looking for jobs now or at least decide which fields you would be interested in joining. If you can plan in advance, you can be ready to make the transition if you get laid off.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons