Thank Unions on Labor Day

 Posted by at 12:58 pm  Holiday, Politics
Sep 052016
 

Labor-day2012

For most of my early life I considered Labor Day little more than a day off at the end of summer.  That’s because I am not a union man.  I have never belonged to a union, nor has anyone in my family.  So what has the labor movement done for me?  I have learned what organized labor has done to improve the lot of all American Workers, and I have come to understand that Labor Day is a celebration of Union labor, and one that is well deserved.

laborThinkProgress has assembled just five of the many things that Americans can thank the nation’s unions for giving us all:

1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend: Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that the relatively labor-free 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now…

2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality: As ThinkProgress reported earlier in the week, the relative decline of unions over the past 35 years has mirrored a decline in the middle class’s share of national income…

3. Unions Helped End Child Labor: “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined” in U.S. history, with organization’s like the “National Consumers’ League” and the National Child Labor Committee” working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor…

4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: “The rise of unions in the 1930′s and 1940′s led to the first great expansion of health care” for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers…

5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act: Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

It’s well worth the time to click through for the rest of this article.

Furthermore, here is an excellent video on what labor has done for America.

 

Therefore, to begin my celebration of Labor Day in the best possible way, I wish to thank all of you who are or have been union workers.  My life is better because of you.  And to you and everyone else, have a Happy Labor Day!

Support Labor!  Defeat Trump!

Un-employ a Republican Office Holder!

Share

  13 Responses to “Thank Unions on Labor Day”

  1. I'm sure everyone knows that Alan Grayson lost his primary.  However, I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone he will not be slinking off into the sunset any time just yet.  I received this email from him today:

    "Today is Labor Day, and last week marked the 95th anniversary of the most brutal confrontation in the history of the American labor movement, the Battle of Blair Mountain. For one week during 1921, armed, striking coal miners battled scabs, a private militia, police officers and the U.S. Army. One hundred people died, 1,000 were arrested, and one million shots were fired. It was the largest armed rebellion in America since the Civil War.

    This is how it happened. In the ‘20s, West Virginia coal miners lived in “company towns.” The mining companies owned all the property. They literally ran union organizers out of town — or killed them.

    In 1912, in a strike at Paint Creek, the mining company forced the striking miners and their families out of their homes, to live in tents. Then they sent armed goons into that tent city, and opened fire on men, women and children there with a machine gun.

    By 1920, the United Mine Workers had organized the northern mines in West Virginia, but they were barred from the southern mines. When southern miners tried to join the union, they were fired and evicted. To show who was boss, one mining company tried to place machine guns on the roofs of buildings in town. In Matewan, when the coal company goons came to town to take it upon themselves to enforce eviction notices, the mayor and the sheriff asked them to leave. The goons refused. Incredibly, the goons tried to arrest the sheriff, Sheriff Hatfield. Shots were fired, and the mayor and nine others were killed. But the company goons had to flee.

    The government sided with the coal companies, and put Sheriff Hatfield on trial for murder. The jury acquitted him. Then they put the sheriff on trial for supposedly dynamiting a non-union mine. As the sheriff walked up the courthouse steps to stand trial again, unarmed, company goons shot him in cold blood. In front of his wife.

    This led to open confrontations between miners on one hand, and police and company goons on the other. Thirteen thousand armed miners assembled, and marched on the southern mines in Logan and Mingo Counties. They confronted a private militia of 2,000, hired by the coal companies.

    President Harding was informed. He threatened to send in troops and even bombers to break the union. Many miners turned back, but then company goons started killing unarmed union men, and some armed miners pushed on. The militia attacked armed miners, and the coal companies hired airplanes to drop bombs on them. The U.S. Army Air Force, as it was known then, observed the miners’ positions from overhead, and passed that information on to the coal companies.

    The miners actually broke through the militia’s defensive perimeter, but after five days, the Army intervened, and the miners stood down. By that time, 100 people were dead. Almost a thousand miners then were indicted for murder and treason. No one on the side of the coal companies was ever held accountable.

    The Battle of Blair Mountain showed that the miners could not defeat the coal companies and the government in battle. But then something interesting happened: the miners defeated the coal companies and the government at the ballot box, as pro-labor candidates won victories. In 1925, convicted miners were paroled. In 1932, Democrats won both the State House and the White House. In 1935, President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act. Eleven years after the Battle of Blair Mountain, the United Mine Workers organized the southern coal fields in West Virginia.

    The Battle of Blair Mountain did not have a happy ending for Sheriff Hatfield, or his wife, or the 100 men, women and children who died, or the hundreds who were injured, or the thousands who lost their jobs. But it did have a happy ending for the right to organize, and the middle class, and America.

    Now let me ask you one thing: had you ever heard of this landmark event in American history, the Battle of Blair Mountain, before you read this? And if not, then why not? Think about that."

    • Yes, I have heard of it.  I have noted before that both my grandfathers marched in D.C. with John L Lewis to form the UMWA, and one of them was at Bloody Harlan, another horror story.  I never had a union job, since social workers are not allowed to unionize in Kentucky, but I have always supported the unions.  Every time one of my co workers would make a snide remark about unions, I would remind them of the benefits they were receiving because the unions had fought for them.  Sadly, Raygun was able to start breaking unions without shedding any blood and the American people stood by and let it happen. Now look where we are.

    • I have heard of it.  I've seen a documentary on it and Zinn included it in his history.  I'm sure most have not, so thank you for including it.

  2. Thank you, Tom for this post.

  3. "Look for the Union Label …"

    Always enjoyed this ad – just not sure if it'll be embedded … so to bring back memories if it's not:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lg4gGk53iY

    • I look and look and look for that label and it is getting harder to find all the time.  They don't have unions in Bangladesh or China.

  4. Even thinking of the song "The Ballad of Joe Hill," if I have the title right, and I expect it was Woodie Guthrie, or Pete Seeger, who wrote it, can bring a mist to my eyes.  Our entire way of life was marvelously created/changed by the Unioin movement.  Did/do unions abuse their power, sure, just as there are bad apples in every barrell of anything.  

    No one sees the signs that used to abound about working on sundays: "If you don't come to work on Sunday, don't come on Monday."

  5. Thanks for posting this one, TC.  The unions made it possible for the middle class to have a decent life.  Now we have people working 2 jobs and still not breaking the poverty level.  I know the coal industry is dying, but in this area, the unions were forsaken in the eighties and nineties, and the pay rate as well as benefits went down.  Corporations are only going to pay workers what they have to pay them.  Without unions, we are in the same boat as the coal miners Joanne wrote about.

  6. Great post, TC! Labor Unions have done a LOT for the working class. And I belonged to a union for a very short time. We were paid better than the job I came from because of that Union!

    Happy Labor Day!! Happy you are here for this anniversary!!!

  7. Happy Labour Day!

    To preserve Labour Day and labour for future generations . . .

    VOTE BLUE ALL DOWN THE TICKET!!!

  8. Thanks for this excellent post, TomCat. Unions are under threat everywhere as most governments have shifted to the right of the political spectrum and the 1% is really calling the shots. It's good to remind people what the Romans Unions have done for them with this Pythonesque video. 😉 We all should be more appreciative of unions.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.