the.com/union

strength in numbers, weaponized into the eight-hour day and the weekend you take for granted

means A union is the joining of two or more things, people, or groups into a single whole — whether that's a labor organization, a marriage, a coalition of states, or the overlap of two sets in math.

from From Latin 'unio,' meaning oneness — and curiously, the same word the Romans used for a single large pearl, the kind that came one to an oyster. 'Unio' grew straight from 'unus,' 'one,' the same root that seeded 'unit,' 'unite,' and 'universe.' It reached English through Old French 'union' in the late Middle Ages, first carrying the sense of harmony and joining-together; the political and labor meanings — trade unions, the United States as a 'Union' — are later flowerings of that single, ancient idea of many becoming one.

weekend origin
unions fought for the two-day weekend
strength
plural of one is everything
the strike
workers' oldest, sharpest leverage
solidarity
a picket line is a sentence with teeth
physics too
set union combines without double-counting
for instance

soviet union — ussr, 1922-1991, spanned 11 time zones across eastern europe and asia

european union — 27 member states as of 2024, established by maastricht treaty in 1992

act of union 1707 — merged kingdom of scotland and kingdom of england into great britain

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