![\"Labor-day2012\"](\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Labor-day2012.jpg\" "\\"Labor-day2012\\"")
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May each of you enjoy the day, while giving thanks and appreciation to our labor movement, because we owe them so much.<\/font><\/p>\n ThinkProgress has assembled just five of the many things that Americans can thank the nation\u2019s unions for giving us all:<\/font><\/p>\n 1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that the relatively labor-free 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours<\/a><\/font> \u2014 almost double what most Americans work now. Yet in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes<\/a><\/font> in order to demand shorter workweeks so that Americans could be home with their loved ones instead of constantly toiling for their employers with no leisure time. By 1937<\/a><\/font>, these labor actions created enough political momentum to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped create a federal framework for a shorter workweek that included room for leisure time.<\/font><\/p>\n 2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> As ThinkProgress reported earlier in the week, the relative decline of unions over the past 35 years has mirrored<\/a><\/font> a decline in the middle class\u2019s share of national income. It is also true that at the time when most Americans belonged to a union \u2014 a period of time<\/a><\/font> between the 1940\u2032s and 1950\u2032s \u2014 income inequality in the U.S. was at its lowest point<\/a><\/font> in the history of the country. <\/font><\/p>\n 3. Unions Helped End Child Labor:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> \u201cUnion organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined\u201d in U.S. history, with organization\u2019s like the \u201cNational Consumers\u2019 League\u201d and the National Child Labor Committee\u201d working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor. The very first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed \u201ca resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment<\/a><\/font>\u201d in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.<\/font><\/p>\n 4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> \u201cThe rise of unions in the 1930\u2032s and 1940\u2032s led to the first great expansion of health care\u201d for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers. In 1942, \u201cthe US set up a National War Labor Board. It had the power to set a cap on all wage increases. But it let employers circumvent the cap by offering \u201cfringe benefits\u201d \u2013 notably, health insurance.\u201d By 1950, \u201chalf of all companies with fewer than 250 workers and two-thirds<\/a><\/font> of all companies with more than 250 workers offered health insurance of one kind or another.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n 5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act:<\/font><\/strong><\/span> Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which \u201crequires state agencies<\/a><\/font> 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\u2019s own illness.\u201d\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May each of you enjoy the day, while giving thanks and appreciation to our labor movement, because we owe them so much. ThinkProgress has assembled just five of the many things that Americans can thank the nation\u2019s unions for giving us all: 1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend: Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n