I grew up in a family with a long history with the Labor Unions.
Being part of a Union, when you had the opportunity, was ALWAYS Better.
Thom Hartmann calls Labor Unions: "Democracy in the Workplace."
That is largely true.
No wonder Republicans hate them.
No wonder Corporations want to put them 'out of business'. To Bust them up.
But without the long hard-fought struggles of Working People fighting for Dignity,
ALL Workers would be much the Poorer for it -- literally and physically.
Labor Unions have gain us Worker Rights -- Rights that far too many take for granted -- especially the Non-unionized Workers, WHO also benefit from the Labor Rights that Unions have won -- most often for everyone.
"Rights" are funny that way ...
Here are some of those hard-won Labor Rights that Unions have fought for ... and that Unions have won for you and me.
The U.S. Labor Movement and Its Achievements
Labor Research Association, workinglife.org --Sep 04, 2001
Labor Day is the time of year when the nation honors the working people who have built this country and made it prosperous. It is also a time to remember the achievements of the organized labor movement in United States history. As is often noted every September, many of the basic rights and benefits that are sometimes taken for granted were not kindly handed to workers by employers. It took the hard work and dedication of thousands of union men and women who struggled bravely to win these rights.
The labor movement in the United States led the struggles to:
-- End child labor
-- Establish the legal right of workers to form unions and collectively bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions
-- Establish the 8 hour work day and paid overtime
-- Win workers' comp benefits for workers injured on the job
-- Secure unemployment insurance for workers who lose their jobs
-- Secure a guaranteed minimum wage
-- Improve workplace safety and reduce on the job fatalities
-- Win pensions for workers
-- Win health care insurance for workers
-- Win paid sick leave, vacations, and holidays as standard benefits for most workers
-- Win the right for public sector workers to collectively bargain
-- Win passage of the Civil Right Acts and Title VII which outlaws job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin
-- Win passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
-- Win passage of the Family Medical Leave Act
Here are some of Worker Issues that Unions are STILL fighting for ... using their Political Power -- what's left of it, that is. You see, Unions have some very powerful enemies, that would end Union's Bargaining and Organizing power, if they could.
[...]
Unions today [2001] are using their political power to:
-- Stop attacks on the 40 hour work and paid overtime
-- Defend the nation's safety and health laws
-- Protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare
-- Protect the rights of patients against the abuses of managed care
-- Defeat radical measures that would deny the freedom of union members to participate in politics
Here are some "selected" milestones of the long, hard struggle of the Labor Movement, through out American's little known History.
It was not a quick or direct path.
The Labor Victories were NOT easy. We should NOT take them for granted. Ever.
Labor History Timeline
AFL-CIO: American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations
1834 First turnout of “mill girls” in Lowell, Mass., to protect wage cuts
1835 General strike for 10-hour day in Philadelphia
[...]
1843 Lowell Female Labor Reform Association begins public petitioning for 10-hour day
1847 New Hamsphire enacts first state 10-hour-day law
[...]
1863 President Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
1865 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishes slavery
[...]
1866 National Labor Union founded
1877 National uprising of railroad workers Ten Irish coal miners ("Molly Maguires") hanged in Pennsylvania; nine more subsequently were hanged
[...]
1881 Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions formed
1882 First Labor Day parade in New York City
[...]
1886 American Federation of Labor founded
1887 Seven "anarchists" charged with the bombing in Chicago's Haymarket Square and sentenced to death
1890 Carpenters President P.J. McGuire and the union strike and win the eight-hour day for some 28,000 members
[...]
1900 AFL and National Civic Federation promote trade agreements with employers
1900 U.S. Industrial Commission declares trade unions good for democracy.
[...]
1903 Women’s Trade Union League formed at AFL convention
[...]
1909 “Uprising of the 20,000” female shirtwaist makers in New York strike against sweatshop conditions
[...]
1912 Bread and Roses strike begun by immigrant women in Lawrence, Mass., ended with 23,000 men and women and children on strike and with as many as 20,000 on the picket line
1912 Bill creating Department of Labor passes at the end of congressional session
[...]
1914 Ludlow Massacre of 13 women and children and seven men in Colorado coal miners’ strike
[...]
1918 Leadership of Industrial Workers of the World sentenced to federal prison oncharges of disloyalty to the United States
[...]
1919 One of every five workers walked out in great strike wave, including national clothing coal and steel strikes;
[...]
1931 Davis-Bacon Act provides for prevailing wages on publicly funded construction projects
1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits federal injunctions in most labor disputes
1933 President Franklin Roosevelt proposes New Deal programs to Congress
[...]
1935 National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act passed Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) formed within AFL
1936 AFL and CIO create labor's Non-Partisan League and help President Roosevelt win re-election to a second term
1937 Auto Workers win sit-down strike against General Motors in Flint, Mich.
1937 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters wins contract with Pullman Co.
1938 Fair Labor Standards Act establishes first minimum wage and 40-hour week.
1938 Congress of industrial Organizations forms as an independent federation
1943 CIO forms first political action committee to get out the union vote for President Roosevelt
[...]
1946 Largest strike wave in U.S. history
1947 Taft-Hartley Act restricts union members' activities
[...]
1959 Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin) passed
1962 President John Kennedy's order gives federal workers the right to bargain
1963 March on Washington for jobs and Justice
[...]
1963 Equal Pay Act bans wage discrimination based on gender
1964 Civil Rights Act bans institutional forms of racial discrimination
1965 AFL-CIO forms A. Philip Randolph Institute
[...]
1965 César Chávez forms AFL-CIO United Farm Workers Organizing Committee
1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., during sanitation workers' strike
[...]
1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act passed
1972 Coalition of Black Trade Unionists formed
1973 Labor Council for Latin American Advancement founded
1974 Coalition of Labor Union Women founded
[...]
1981 President Reagan breaks air traffic controllers’s strike
1981 AFL-CIO rallies 400,000 in Washington on Solidarity Day
[...]
1997 AFL-CIO defeats legislation giving the president the ability to “Fast Track’ trade legislation without assured protection of workers’ rights and the environment
1997 Pride at Work, a national coalition of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender workers and their supporters, becomes an AFL-CIO constituency group
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(Timeline source: Democracy at Work: The Union Movement in U.S. History, coming this fall from the AFL-CIO, by Prof. James Green, University of Massachusetts-Boston Labor Resource Center.)
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I grew up in a family with a long history with the Labor Unions.
It is a proud and meaningful part of my heritage, part of my values;
a foundation of my basic World View:
Workers deserve dignity.
Workers deserve safety.
Workers deserve equity.
And NO, Scott Walker -- THOSE THINGS are NOT too much ask
-- NOT too much to Demand, even.
Without Labor, all the best-hatched schemes of the Wealthy Class, don't stand a chance of happening.
Face it, Labor is the heart and soul, and the strength of the Nation.
Labor is what has made America what it is today.
AND Labor WILL make this country become -- WHAT it will someday be, too.
Such is the power of the American People.
Just give us the Tools, and the Opportunities ... and get out of the way.