Labor Day. This weekend, as you enjoy a day off and the remaining days of summer with friends and family, it’s important to remember what Labor Day is actually celebrating—the incredible progress of workers’ rights. When unions are strong, they are able to boost all workers' wages—regardless of whether they are members of a union, reduce poverty and strengthen the middle class. But the fight for workers’ rights isn’t over. Workers across the country will be on strike this Labor Day to demand $15 and a union. Unions are under attack by corporate interests, and many workers still aren’t paid fair wages. So this Labor Day, let’s honor those who have fought so hard for weekends, fair compensation, paid leave, and more by standing up for those who still need more protections in their jobs.
Last Thursday a Texas federal judge struck down an Obama-era rule that would have provided overtime protections for over 4 million workers throughout the country. Ben Olinsky, the vice president of policy and strategy at the Center for American Progress, noted that this decision “is a huge loss…[and] Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta and President Donald Trump should stand up for workers by appealing this ruling immediately.”
“The good news this Labor Day: Jobs are returning. The bad news this Labor Day: Most of them pay lousy wages and low if non-existent benefits.” -Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. It was first nationally recognized in 1894 to placate unionists following the Pullman Strike. With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbecues and the end of summer vacations. -Wikipedia
Labor unions are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries in the United States. Their activity today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions. Larger unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level. -Wikipedia
You see that first picture above? The one that says “Labor Day,” with the four flags. It looks pretty patriotic doesn’t it?
You can even find pictures of naked ladies with the American flag strategically draped over them denoting that Labor Day is a very American and an important holiday, although one has to wonder exactly what kind of labor they’re advocating for.
Most politicians wouldn’t mind seeing labor unions go the way of the dinosaurs, including those that live in the White House. Republicans traditionally resent labor unions and do what they can to curb their influence. The right wing media villainize unions and their members as parasites upon society, and unfortunately those who listen to their dribble, tend to carry on and live with that idea as if it were their own, and resent those being represented by labor, those who might make a decent living and enjoy pensions and health benefits, and think of them as overpaid and unnecessary burdens placed upon the rest of the country.
Unless of course they happen to be members of unions themselves.
As did my own sister who worked in the gaming industry in Laughlin, Nevada.
For one reason or another she had a negative view of unions and refused to take part in efforts to unionize the worker in casinos.
I still don’t know how she feels about unions in general. I do know she was summarily fired from her long standing job as a black jack dealer when she developed severe back pain and wasn’able to stand for lengthy periods of time. She was let go without a pension or benefits of any kind. The casino just used her up and discarded her when she couldn’t meet their expectations, something that a union definitely could have helped her with.
In any case, regardless of how unions are perceived, “Study after study has come to the same conclusion: When workers come together in unions, they can help make things better for themselves, and indeed most Americans. Joining together enables workers to negotiate for higher wages and benefits, and when unions are strong, these benefits can spill over into other nonunion workplaces. Unions of working people also help ensure that government works for everyone—not just those at the top—by encouraging people of modest means to vote and by providing a crucial counterbalance to wealthy interest groups. Their ability to improve conditions in the workplace and in our democracy means that unions play a critical role in building the middle class.” -David Madland and Alex Rowell of The Center for American Progress action Fund.
Democrats are traditionally seen as pro-union, pro-labor, and have indeed benefited by receiving major campaign contributions from unions as a result, which is another reason the Republicans hate them... unions that is (they hate Democrats too, as seen by their childish refusal to call the Democratic Party by their real name... the Democratic Party. Instead they call it the Democrat Party, a pejorative reference, one that sadly has infected many democrats and media anchor people, who should know better).
I was a member of a union at one time. The Communication Workers of America, representing about 550,000 members in both the private and public sectors. I didn’t have a whole lot of exposure to it, and my pay was hourly and not expansive, and I don’t recall how much the dues were, but it did help me by making it difficult for AT&T (I was working as a long distance operator at the time) management to fire me when I was absent from work for extended periods of time due to illness. And my health benefits, which the union promoted and protected, allowed me to enjoy hospital care when I needed it, medical attention I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford.
Being in that union was also psychologically beneficial, knowing I had a whole bunch of people whose only job it was to look out for my interests. I had worked too many jobs where that wasn’t the case, and the boss could fire me at their whim, for any reason, or none at all.
Unions tend to even out the power structure of the working place.
Lately, as the second and third paragraph above suggests, unions have been in decline in this country. “With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbecues and the end of summer vacations.” Wow, what a sad declaration. A day set aside to celebrate the average worker's contribution to the country to one that designates it’s a good time to cook some hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, or maybe get that vacation to Ogallala, Nebraska in before autumn comes and the falling leaves begin to blanket the roads.
Labor unions and the laborers that make them up originally proposed the idea of a national holiday devoted to labor. A machinist, Matthew Maguire, while serving as secretary of the CLU (Central Labor Union) of New York, proposed the idea in 1882, way before my time... or even yours (others say it was Peter J. McGuire of the AFL (American Federation of Labor) that same year, after attending a “labor festival” in Canada. I have no idea who was actually first, so we’ll let the two duke it out amongst themselves). However, it was the states who took up the idea way before the federal government got on board. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21st, 1887. During the next year four more, the states Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York created a Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By 1894, 30 states had adopted the holiday.
And that was the year that Congress passed legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday, 1894, and the President at the time, one Grover Cleveland (no relation to the city. He is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897)), who was definitely pro-business. A Democrat, as a matter of fact a Bourbon Democrat (a Democrat who only drinks whiskey made of a grain mix of at least 51% corn), who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism and subsidies to business, farmers or veterans. Today’s Republicans would have loved him (although when a “Railroad Bubble” burst at the beginning of his second term, causing a national depression he was unable to alleviate, allowing the Republicans to dominate the government which ironically ushered in the “Progressive Era,” a period of social activism and political reform that flourished until the 1920s).
Grover signed Labor Day into law more than likely as a political sop to the existing labor organizations and unions due to his intervention in the Pullman Strike (second picture above), in which thousands of United States Marshals and some 12,000 United States Army troops intervened in a strike by workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company, which made railroad cars, causing the death of 30 strikers, and wounding 57 others. He signed it into law just six days after the strike ended.
In 1987 President Cleveland opted to celebrate the new national holiday in September, as the unions favored, rather than on May 1st, which was synonymous with, or linked to, International Workers' Day, which celebrated labor forces internationally, but was also linked with the nascent Communist, Syndicalist and Anarchist movements of the day.
For a time unions flourished and fought for the rights of all workers, whether unionized or not.
In 1938, in the midst of the “Great Depression,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law, which introduced a maximum 44-hour seven-day workweek (the United States Adamson Act in 1916 established an eight-hour day, with additional pay for overtime, for railroad workers. This was the first federal law that regulated the hours of workers in private companies. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (1917). The Fair Labor Standards Act, as enacted applied to industries whose combined employment represented about twenty percent of the U.S. labor force. In those industries, it set the maximum workweek at 40 hours, but provided that employees working beyond 40 hours a week would receive additional overtime bonus salaries), established a national minimum wage, guaranteed "time-and-a-half" for overtime in certain jobs, and prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor," all in the face of considerable opposition and criticism from large business interests.
Despite projections to the contrary, the Sun still shined, the world still existed, and the country somehow survived.
This is one reason today’s right wing, and modern conservatives hate FDR and everything he stood for (Rush Limbaugh: "Roosevelt is dead. His policies may live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well."), and wish to repeal all of his legislative efforts. (in May of 2013 and 2017, House Republicans passed a bill that would end the 40-hour work week (it would be nice if we could get Congress to actually work 40 hours a week), dismantling an important component of the Federal Labor Standards Act, which made into law would hurt middle-class families across the country. Sponsored by Rep. Martha Roby (AL), in 2013, and Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) in 2017, the dubiously-titled “Working Families Flexibility Act” (H.R. 1180) would remove the requirement that employers pay a cash premium for overtime work and instead allow them to offer employees compensatory time off. The effect would be a Federal Labor Standards Act that is undermined of its only incentive against excessive hours and a cheaper way for employers to demand mandatory overtime. Eileen Appelbaum, a senior economist with the Center for Economic Policy and Research, says the bill’s major effect would be to hurt workers, “likely increasing overtime hours for those who don’t want them and cutting pay for those who do.” The Bill was passed in the House May 2nd, 2017, and sent to the Senate in April where it was sent to committee. Repealing Child Labor Laws are also on the Republican agenda).
There are many and varied arguments against unions and unionization, many of which are born from economic theory from the likes of the economist Milton Friedman, which the Republican Party has adopted in it’s efforts to stymie the advancement of the labor force and higher wages. Some of these arguments are valid, as in the case of the corruption in unions and their leadership (the case of Jimmy Hoffa comes to mind) and the mistaken assumption that higher wages, and by extension, a living minimum wage, are harmful to the overall economy in that they will discourage job formation.
Well there is corruption in unions. There’s corruption everywhere! The United States enjoys a 2015 Corruption Perception Index of 76 (0 being the least corrupt and 100 being the most), with only Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, Belgium, and Austria being less corrupt.
The passage of Citizens United v. FEC insured that massive amounts of money could and would be injected into the American election process. Who needs Russian hacking when politicians can just be bought and paid for? And if Citizens United were not bad enough, members of Congress spend at least half of their time soliciting funds for their next election. It would seem that the interests of congress is not to do the people’s business, but to stay in power. So to the question, is our Congress corrupt, I would have to refer to Joyce’s Take’s own exhaustive investigation.
Corruption is a problem everywhere, and should be dealt with accordingly any time it is detected... unions don’t need to be singled out.
As to higher wages being responsible for poor employment, that is a right wing myth. As a matter of fact just the opposite is true.
Some people, like Mike Patton writing for Forbes Magazine, imply that an “increase in annual pay would be approximately $40.8 billion. If we exclude all taxes and assume 100% of the increase was spent on various goods and services, it would equate to 0.23% of total U.S. GDP ($40.8 billion / $18 trillion). Here's my point. This increase, even if completely spent (which is doubtful), would not be very significant. Therefore, in my view, the economic benefit "argument" is a red herring.”
Assuming his numbers are correct I take issue with his conclusion. A $40.8 billion injection into our economy is a good thing and not to be belittled (and a higher wage for workers has the added, and not insignificant affect of bettering the lives of American workers, reducing poverty and homelessness, etc.).
Unions fight for this, and for doing so directly interfere with the interests of most politicians, which is to shovel all available funds to powerful people and business interests, therefore insuring their own ability to stay in power.
Please, enjoy this almost hypocritical celebration of labor on this day. Grill some hot dogs, hamburgers, and maybe some ears of corn. Take a vacation.
Celebrate the fact that Labor Day Weekend is the top holiday for those who legally sell marijuana!
I’ll let the independent Senator from Vermont, and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders have the last word:
We must rebuild the American labor movement and make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions. Forty years ago, more than a quarter of all workers belonged to a union. Today, that number has gone down to just 11 percent and in the private sector it is now less than 7 percent as Republican governors across the country have signed anti-union legislation into law, drastically cutting labor membership in this country.
It is not a coincidence that the decline of the American middle class virtually mirrors the rapid decline in union membership. As workers lose their seat at the negotiating table, the share of national income going to middle class workers has gone down, while the percentage of income going to the very wealthy has gone up.
The benefits of joining a union are clear. Union workers earn 27 percent more, on average, than non-union workers. Over 76 percent of union workers have guaranteed defined benefit pension plans, while only 16 percent of non-union workers do. More than 82 percent of workers in unions have paid sick leave, compared to just 62 percent of non-union workers.
In order to revitalize American democracy we must overturn Citizens United, move to public funding of elections and end voter suppression.
We must demand that the wealthy and large corporations begin paying their fair share of taxes.
We must break-up the large Wall Street financial banks and make sure that no institution in America is too big to fail.
We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage, $15 an hour, and end the unconscionable and inequitable pay gap that currently exists between male and female workers.
We must re-write our disastrous trade policies and make sure that trade agreements benefit workers and not just CEOs of large corporations.
We must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure with a $1 trillion dollar investment and create up to 15 million good-paying jobs.
We must pass a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system and guarantee health care as a right, not a privilege.
We must make public colleges and universities tuition free for working families so that everyone can get a higher education regardless of income.
Today, on Labor Day, we must recommit ourselves to bringing all working people together in the fight for a just and humane world.
Last Thursday a Texas federal judge struck down an Obama-era rule that would have provided overtime protections for over 4 million workers throughout the country. Ben Olinsky, the vice president of policy and strategy at the Center for American Progress, noted that this decision “is a huge loss…[and] Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta and President Donald Trump should stand up for workers by appealing this ruling immediately.”
“The good news this Labor Day: Jobs are returning. The bad news this Labor Day: Most of them pay lousy wages and low if non-existent benefits.” -Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. It was first nationally recognized in 1894 to placate unionists following the Pullman Strike. With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbecues and the end of summer vacations. -Wikipedia
Labor unions are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries in the United States. Their activity today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions. Larger unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level. -Wikipedia
You see that first picture above? The one that says “Labor Day,” with the four flags. It looks pretty patriotic doesn’t it?
You can even find pictures of naked ladies with the American flag strategically draped over them denoting that Labor Day is a very American and an important holiday, although one has to wonder exactly what kind of labor they’re advocating for.
Most politicians wouldn’t mind seeing labor unions go the way of the dinosaurs, including those that live in the White House. Republicans traditionally resent labor unions and do what they can to curb their influence. The right wing media villainize unions and their members as parasites upon society, and unfortunately those who listen to their dribble, tend to carry on and live with that idea as if it were their own, and resent those being represented by labor, those who might make a decent living and enjoy pensions and health benefits, and think of them as overpaid and unnecessary burdens placed upon the rest of the country.
Unless of course they happen to be members of unions themselves.
As did my own sister who worked in the gaming industry in Laughlin, Nevada.
For one reason or another she had a negative view of unions and refused to take part in efforts to unionize the worker in casinos.
I still don’t know how she feels about unions in general. I do know she was summarily fired from her long standing job as a black jack dealer when she developed severe back pain and wasn’able to stand for lengthy periods of time. She was let go without a pension or benefits of any kind. The casino just used her up and discarded her when she couldn’t meet their expectations, something that a union definitely could have helped her with.
In any case, regardless of how unions are perceived, “Study after study has come to the same conclusion: When workers come together in unions, they can help make things better for themselves, and indeed most Americans. Joining together enables workers to negotiate for higher wages and benefits, and when unions are strong, these benefits can spill over into other nonunion workplaces. Unions of working people also help ensure that government works for everyone—not just those at the top—by encouraging people of modest means to vote and by providing a crucial counterbalance to wealthy interest groups. Their ability to improve conditions in the workplace and in our democracy means that unions play a critical role in building the middle class.” -David Madland and Alex Rowell of The Center for American Progress action Fund.
Democrats are traditionally seen as pro-union, pro-labor, and have indeed benefited by receiving major campaign contributions from unions as a result, which is another reason the Republicans hate them... unions that is (they hate Democrats too, as seen by their childish refusal to call the Democratic Party by their real name... the Democratic Party. Instead they call it the Democrat Party, a pejorative reference, one that sadly has infected many democrats and media anchor people, who should know better).
I was a member of a union at one time. The Communication Workers of America, representing about 550,000 members in both the private and public sectors. I didn’t have a whole lot of exposure to it, and my pay was hourly and not expansive, and I don’t recall how much the dues were, but it did help me by making it difficult for AT&T (I was working as a long distance operator at the time) management to fire me when I was absent from work for extended periods of time due to illness. And my health benefits, which the union promoted and protected, allowed me to enjoy hospital care when I needed it, medical attention I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford.
Being in that union was also psychologically beneficial, knowing I had a whole bunch of people whose only job it was to look out for my interests. I had worked too many jobs where that wasn’t the case, and the boss could fire me at their whim, for any reason, or none at all.
Unions tend to even out the power structure of the working place.
Lately, as the second and third paragraph above suggests, unions have been in decline in this country. “With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbecues and the end of summer vacations.” Wow, what a sad declaration. A day set aside to celebrate the average worker's contribution to the country to one that designates it’s a good time to cook some hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, or maybe get that vacation to Ogallala, Nebraska in before autumn comes and the falling leaves begin to blanket the roads.
Labor unions and the laborers that make them up originally proposed the idea of a national holiday devoted to labor. A machinist, Matthew Maguire, while serving as secretary of the CLU (Central Labor Union) of New York, proposed the idea in 1882, way before my time... or even yours (others say it was Peter J. McGuire of the AFL (American Federation of Labor) that same year, after attending a “labor festival” in Canada. I have no idea who was actually first, so we’ll let the two duke it out amongst themselves). However, it was the states who took up the idea way before the federal government got on board. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21st, 1887. During the next year four more, the states Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York created a Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By 1894, 30 states had adopted the holiday.
And that was the year that Congress passed legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday, 1894, and the President at the time, one Grover Cleveland (no relation to the city. He is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897)), who was definitely pro-business. A Democrat, as a matter of fact a Bourbon Democrat (a Democrat who only drinks whiskey made of a grain mix of at least 51% corn), who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism and subsidies to business, farmers or veterans. Today’s Republicans would have loved him (although when a “Railroad Bubble” burst at the beginning of his second term, causing a national depression he was unable to alleviate, allowing the Republicans to dominate the government which ironically ushered in the “Progressive Era,” a period of social activism and political reform that flourished until the 1920s).
Grover signed Labor Day into law more than likely as a political sop to the existing labor organizations and unions due to his intervention in the Pullman Strike (second picture above), in which thousands of United States Marshals and some 12,000 United States Army troops intervened in a strike by workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company, which made railroad cars, causing the death of 30 strikers, and wounding 57 others. He signed it into law just six days after the strike ended.
In 1987 President Cleveland opted to celebrate the new national holiday in September, as the unions favored, rather than on May 1st, which was synonymous with, or linked to, International Workers' Day, which celebrated labor forces internationally, but was also linked with the nascent Communist, Syndicalist and Anarchist movements of the day.
For a time unions flourished and fought for the rights of all workers, whether unionized or not.
In 1938, in the midst of the “Great Depression,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law, which introduced a maximum 44-hour seven-day workweek (the United States Adamson Act in 1916 established an eight-hour day, with additional pay for overtime, for railroad workers. This was the first federal law that regulated the hours of workers in private companies. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (1917). The Fair Labor Standards Act, as enacted applied to industries whose combined employment represented about twenty percent of the U.S. labor force. In those industries, it set the maximum workweek at 40 hours, but provided that employees working beyond 40 hours a week would receive additional overtime bonus salaries), established a national minimum wage, guaranteed "time-and-a-half" for overtime in certain jobs, and prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor," all in the face of considerable opposition and criticism from large business interests.
Despite projections to the contrary, the Sun still shined, the world still existed, and the country somehow survived.
This is one reason today’s right wing, and modern conservatives hate FDR and everything he stood for (Rush Limbaugh: "Roosevelt is dead. His policies may live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well."), and wish to repeal all of his legislative efforts. (in May of 2013 and 2017, House Republicans passed a bill that would end the 40-hour work week (it would be nice if we could get Congress to actually work 40 hours a week), dismantling an important component of the Federal Labor Standards Act, which made into law would hurt middle-class families across the country. Sponsored by Rep. Martha Roby (AL), in 2013, and Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) in 2017, the dubiously-titled “Working Families Flexibility Act” (H.R. 1180) would remove the requirement that employers pay a cash premium for overtime work and instead allow them to offer employees compensatory time off. The effect would be a Federal Labor Standards Act that is undermined of its only incentive against excessive hours and a cheaper way for employers to demand mandatory overtime. Eileen Appelbaum, a senior economist with the Center for Economic Policy and Research, says the bill’s major effect would be to hurt workers, “likely increasing overtime hours for those who don’t want them and cutting pay for those who do.” The Bill was passed in the House May 2nd, 2017, and sent to the Senate in April where it was sent to committee. Repealing Child Labor Laws are also on the Republican agenda).
There are many and varied arguments against unions and unionization, many of which are born from economic theory from the likes of the economist Milton Friedman, which the Republican Party has adopted in it’s efforts to stymie the advancement of the labor force and higher wages. Some of these arguments are valid, as in the case of the corruption in unions and their leadership (the case of Jimmy Hoffa comes to mind) and the mistaken assumption that higher wages, and by extension, a living minimum wage, are harmful to the overall economy in that they will discourage job formation.
Well there is corruption in unions. There’s corruption everywhere! The United States enjoys a 2015 Corruption Perception Index of 76 (0 being the least corrupt and 100 being the most), with only Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, Belgium, and Austria being less corrupt.
The passage of Citizens United v. FEC insured that massive amounts of money could and would be injected into the American election process. Who needs Russian hacking when politicians can just be bought and paid for? And if Citizens United were not bad enough, members of Congress spend at least half of their time soliciting funds for their next election. It would seem that the interests of congress is not to do the people’s business, but to stay in power. So to the question, is our Congress corrupt, I would have to refer to Joyce’s Take’s own exhaustive investigation.
Corruption is a problem everywhere, and should be dealt with accordingly any time it is detected... unions don’t need to be singled out.
As to higher wages being responsible for poor employment, that is a right wing myth. As a matter of fact just the opposite is true.
Some people, like Mike Patton writing for Forbes Magazine, imply that an “increase in annual pay would be approximately $40.8 billion. If we exclude all taxes and assume 100% of the increase was spent on various goods and services, it would equate to 0.23% of total U.S. GDP ($40.8 billion / $18 trillion). Here's my point. This increase, even if completely spent (which is doubtful), would not be very significant. Therefore, in my view, the economic benefit "argument" is a red herring.”
Assuming his numbers are correct I take issue with his conclusion. A $40.8 billion injection into our economy is a good thing and not to be belittled (and a higher wage for workers has the added, and not insignificant affect of bettering the lives of American workers, reducing poverty and homelessness, etc.).
Unions fight for this, and for doing so directly interfere with the interests of most politicians, which is to shovel all available funds to powerful people and business interests, therefore insuring their own ability to stay in power.
Please, enjoy this almost hypocritical celebration of labor on this day. Grill some hot dogs, hamburgers, and maybe some ears of corn. Take a vacation.
Celebrate the fact that Labor Day Weekend is the top holiday for those who legally sell marijuana!
I’ll let the independent Senator from Vermont, and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders have the last word:
We must rebuild the American labor movement and make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions. Forty years ago, more than a quarter of all workers belonged to a union. Today, that number has gone down to just 11 percent and in the private sector it is now less than 7 percent as Republican governors across the country have signed anti-union legislation into law, drastically cutting labor membership in this country.
It is not a coincidence that the decline of the American middle class virtually mirrors the rapid decline in union membership. As workers lose their seat at the negotiating table, the share of national income going to middle class workers has gone down, while the percentage of income going to the very wealthy has gone up.
The benefits of joining a union are clear. Union workers earn 27 percent more, on average, than non-union workers. Over 76 percent of union workers have guaranteed defined benefit pension plans, while only 16 percent of non-union workers do. More than 82 percent of workers in unions have paid sick leave, compared to just 62 percent of non-union workers.
In order to revitalize American democracy we must overturn Citizens United, move to public funding of elections and end voter suppression.
We must demand that the wealthy and large corporations begin paying their fair share of taxes.
We must break-up the large Wall Street financial banks and make sure that no institution in America is too big to fail.
We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage, $15 an hour, and end the unconscionable and inequitable pay gap that currently exists between male and female workers.
We must re-write our disastrous trade policies and make sure that trade agreements benefit workers and not just CEOs of large corporations.
We must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure with a $1 trillion dollar investment and create up to 15 million good-paying jobs.
We must pass a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system and guarantee health care as a right, not a privilege.
We must make public colleges and universities tuition free for working families so that everyone can get a higher education regardless of income.
Today, on Labor Day, we must recommit ourselves to bringing all working people together in the fight for a just and humane world.
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