So James Hoffa used the phrase “sons-a-bitches” in a speech to workers on Labor Day.

Big deal. Former Vice President Dick Cheney used the F-bomb on the Senate floor and the right never uttered a complaint. Bush was pictured flipping the bird to press photographers. Not a word. In fact, Most Americans never saw the photo.

But now the right is complaining Hoffa was vulgar and inciting people to violence.

Of course, if you heard the whole sentence, which most Americans have not, you know he’s talking about voting the sons-a-bitches out, not killing them.

Of course, Sarah Palin’s little targets on her web site weren’t there to signify a call to violence, nor were the words “lock and load.” The people who showed up at political rallies toting guns weren’t meant to threaten anyone.

But if the words or actions come from someone who’s worker-friendly, that’s different.

Thing is, if you celebrate Labor Day, you can thank the unions and the people who died to establish worker rights.

Before unions, companies owned entire towns. People were paid in company scrip — not money — which was redeemable only at the company store. Goods were expensive enough so that no one could afford what they needed, so workers were always in debt to the store, and to the company, which meant they couldn’t just quit; they had to keep working for the company until their debt was paid off.

Children as young as 5 or 6 went to work. Corporate people loved them because their little hands could fit into the machinery to untangle fabric or threads and get the machinery working again, and if they lost a finger or a hand in the process, there were always more little hands.

My grandparents both worked in textile mills in New England when they were children. My grandmother left school in the second grade to work in the mills. She taught herself to read and write and later taught my grandfather.

But workers toiled 12 to 16 hours, every day. There were no vacations or paid sick day, coffee breaks or retirement. There was no minimum wage, no Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. There was no Workers’ Compensation Insurance or Unemployment. There were few, if any, safety rules. Human beings were expendable.

Corporate thugs did all they could to keep the workers down, including beating them up and killing them if they tried to form unions or otherwise make working conditions better.

Those are the days big corporations, and the politicians they own, want to take us back to. You bet we want those sons-a-bitches out of government.