On some issues, the difference between Obama and Bush couldn’t be starker.

Case in point: labor rights.

Over the weekend, Obama demonstrated his support for the 200 workers protesting at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago. They were summarily fired last week without severance or vacation pay.

Rather than take it lying down, they took it sitting down. They’ve been occupying the factory since Friday in an exercise of labor militancy that is reminiscent of the sit-down strikes of the 1930s.

Just as those strikers had the support of FDR, these strikers have the support of Obama.

“They’re absolutely right,” he said on Sunday, and he added: “What’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across the country.”

Obama used to work with laid-off workers when he did community organizing in Chicago, so this cause is near and dear to his heart.

His solidarity with the strikers has helped convince the owners of Republic Windows and Doors to meet with the workers.

You didn’t see George Bush support these workers.

And the message Obama is sending to employers around the country is that the all-out assault on workers, which started with Ronald Reagan and the PATCO strike and continued through the past 8 years of Bush-Cheney, may finally be coming to an end.

On the labor front, at least, change is happening.