{"id":5790,"date":"2011-09-05T00:25:19","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T07:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5790"},"modified":"2011-09-05T00:25:19","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T07:25:19","slug":"labor-day-what-has-labor-done-for-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/05\/labor-day-what-has-labor-done-for-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day: What Has Labor Done for America?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Labor-day\"<\/font><\/p>\n

Today is the day we give thanks to the working men and women of America.  As a nation, and as individuals, we owe a great debt to organized labor.  As a tribute to these American heroes, here is a small part of what they have done to make your life better.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"labor\"…As these conservatives have launched their assault, a Main Street Movement<\/a><\/font> consisting of ordinary Americans fed up with living in such an unequal country has fought back.<\/font><\/p>\n

Conservatives have sought to malign this movement by claiming that it is simply defending the parochial interests of labor unions, who they claim<\/a><\/font> are imposing huge costs on taxpayers with little benefit. Yet the truth is that America\u2019s public and private unions have been one of the major forces in building a robust and vibrant middle class and have fought over the past century to improve the lives of all Americans in a variety of ways. 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<\/font><\/a> \u2014 almost double what most Americans work now…<\/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<\/font><\/a> a decline in the middle class\u2019s share of national income\u2026<\/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…<\/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\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/span>5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act:<\/strong><\/span> Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which \u201crequires state agencies<\/font><\/a> 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 <\/font><\/p>\n

…[emphasis original<\/em><\/span>] <\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

This article is about six months old.  Click through.  There\u2019s a lot more detail.<\/font><\/p>\n

To the working men and women of America, including those looking for work, thank you.<\/font><\/p>\n

Happy Labor Day to all.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is the day we give thanks to the working men and women of America.  As a nation, and as individuals, we owe a great debt to organized labor.  As a tribute to these American heroes, here is a small part of what they have done to make your life better. …As these conservatives have […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holiday","category-politics","category-145-id","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\/5790","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=5790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}