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In my family, a labor union when I was a kid (UAW) and now being married to a teamster brought us good medical benefits, a comfortable life with good pay and limited just how much a company can screw with our lives.
https://time.com/5663465/labor-day-union-history/
Bumper stickers aren’t known for being the most trustworthy sources of historical fact, but the one that proclaims that weekends are “brought to you by the labor movement” gets it exactly right. If anything, it doesn’t go far enough.
Indeed, employers and elected leaders did not implement the five-day workweek out of the goodness of their hearts. Rather, workers and their unions agitated lobbied, organized, struck and voted for decades to achieve these gains. As Frederick Douglass, the legendary African American activist, once declared: power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
A complete list of the ways labor changed American history would be immeasurably long—but, for Labor Day, here are three of the top ways unions helped American workers:
Indeed, employers and elected leaders did not implement the five-day workweek out of the goodness of their hearts. Rather, workers and their unions agitated lobbied, organized, struck and voted for decades to achieve these gains. As Frederick Douglass, the legendary African American activist, once declared: power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
A complete list of the ways labor changed American history would be immeasurably long—but, for Labor Day, here are three of the top ways unions helped American workers: