Labor Day -Solidarity

 

A demonsration per day keeps the fascists away, 

Celebration of Labor Day

As we celebrate Labor Day, 2024, there is some very good news. 

Bernie Sanders 

 

Public approval of labor unions, at 70%, is higher today than it has been in decades. Over the last year major unions like the UAW have won some highly publicized strikes, while many other unions have negotiated trail-blazing contracts for their members. Young people at Starbucks and on college campuses are now more involved in labor organizing than ever before. And, for the first time in American history, a president of the United States, Joe Biden, walked a picket line with striking workers.

It is not an accident as to why we are now seeing more militancy and growth in the labor movement. The working people of our country are increasingly aware of the unprecedented level of corporate greed and power we are now experiencing, and the outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that exists. They understand that never before in American history have so few had so much, while so many continue to struggle. And they are fighting back. They know that workers in unions can negotiate contracts that give them better wages, working conditions and benefits than non-union workers. They appreciate that when you’re in a union you have some power against the arbitrary decisions corporate bosses. 

Working people today are more than aware that, over the last 50 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. They are disgusted that, despite huge increases in worker productivity, real inflation-accounted for wages for the average American worker are lower now than they were over 50 years ago as 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They are insulted that CEOs of major corporations make almost 350 times as much as their average employee. They are concerned that the American dream is ending and that their kids may have an even lower standard of living than they do. And they worry that with the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, they have no power as to what will happen to their jobs as the economy undergoes major transformations.

The average American worker also understands that his/her political power has been significantly diminished as billionaires pour huge amounts of money into both political parties as they undermine our democracy. It is no great secret as to who now has the clout in Congress. It is the billionaires, the corporate CEOs, the campaign donors and their well-connected lobbyists.

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The Meaning of Labor Day

 This antagonism toward unions and worker power is out of step with most Americans. New polling for the AFL-CIO shows historic support for unions across party lines, with especially strong support from young Americans. Navigator Research finds that most Americans view teachers unions favorably, including majorities of both parents and nonparents. And more than 50 groups of workers have joined the American Federation of Teachers so far this year—a pace unseen in decades. America knows: It’s better in a union.

At a time when so many forces are spreading fear and division, unions literally unite people. In the face of fear, we have hope. In the face of despair, we have dreams. In the face of silence, we tell our stories. In the face of smears, we offer solutions. We bring people together to be the most powerful we can be.

The AFT is the home of the people who make a difference in other people’s lives. We offer real solutions for kids and communities. We address hard issues like learning loss, loneliness and literacy challenges. We take on the extremists who want to defund public services, dismantle our democracy, destroy public education and demonize the vulnerable, and the corporations that are more concerned about healthcare profits than patients. And we encourage our members to vote so we have leaders who share and fight for our values.

We have each other’s backs—whether it’s winning safe healthcare staffing levels, as we just did in Oregon, or defending educators’ obligation to teach honest history, as we are doing in New Hampshire. We’re there to help with our free trauma counseling benefit for members, and with the 9 million free books and other resources we have distributed to spark the love of reading. And we have helped members save millions of dollars in student debt, freeing them to buy a home, start a family or buy a car. This is what unions do: We care, we fight and we show up.

This Labor Day, let’s recommit to helping working people and their families gain a better life. Whether it’s members of the United Auto Workers or the Writers Guild of America; workers at Starbucks, Amazon or Apple; or you and your fellow members of the AFT—together we can accomplish things that would be impossible on our own.

Thank you for making a difference in the lives of others, and thank you for being a member of our union. We wish you a wonderful Labor Day. 

In solidarity,

Labor Day Message - For Educators

A growing and enduring middle class, great public schools, a living wage, affordable healthcare and college, a decent retirement, a voice at work and in our democracy, communities that are safe and welcoming—these are American aspirations, and they are what the American labor movement has fought for, for generations. We have fought to ensure these aspirations are attainable for everyone, no matter your ZIP code, race, religion, ethnicity, sex or gender identity.

That’s who we are as a labor movement and as the American Federation of Teachers. And what further binds AFT members together, whether you started working just this week or 30 years ago, is that we make a difference in the lives of others. Every day, we care, we fight and we show up for our families; for the patients, children and citizens we serve; for our communities; and for the freedoms we cherish as Americans. 

This is the 10th year I’ve penned a Labor Day message. It allows me to honor the work of the 1.7 million educators, nurses and health professionals, and public service workers who constitute our union. But this Labor Day can’t just be a day to honor working people, or to march or picnic or go shopping or take those last deep breaths of summer. 

Everything we’ve fought for and have attained is on the line right now—labor rights, civil rights, voting rights, educational opportunities and our democracy itself. Just as it fell to our founders who forged our unions long ago, it falls to our generations, millennials and baby boomers alike, to be the ones who stop the march toward a new Gilded Age and ensure everyone who calls America home has the freedom to secure a better life. 

That’s what the labor movement does: We fight for voice and freedom at work and at the ballot box, just as striking teachers did this past winter and spring. Unions are the best vehicle for working people to secure a better life. Together, we make possible what would be impossible for individuals acting alone. We are the best hope for a fair and decent America. 

The other side—Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers—they know this. That’s why they’ve spent so much of their time and money trying to take unions out. They call it freedom, but, in reality, they want people to fend for themselves. Alone. They like the current system of winners and losers, and will use their money and power in our economic and political system to keep their power. What they didn’t expect is that working people would see through their facade and overwhelmingly rejected right-wing efforts to divide us and destroy unions.

Labor Day and Farm Workers

Arturo Rodriguez, 

While a few short years ago a $15 minimum wage seemed like a moonshot, today municipalities and states across the country are standing with workers and adopting a minimum wage that will ultimately lift 35 million hard-working American families out of poverty.

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration expanded overtime pay protections to more than 4 million working Americans.

And in California we are on the cusp on progress that builds on what the President has accomplished and paves the way for reforms that have the potential to put millions of working Americans on a pathway to the middle class.

Last week, California lawmakers passed first-of-its-kind legislation that allows farm workers to get paid overtime like all other workers.

Labor Wrestles With Its Future

By Harold Myerson

Celebrate Labor Day. 

Since the emergence of capitalism, workers seeking higher pay and safer workplaces have banded together in guilds and unions to pressure their employers for a better deal. That has been the approach of the American labor movement for the past 200 years.

That approach, however, has begun to change. It’s not because unions think collective bargaining is a bad idea but because workers can’t form unions any more — not in the private sector, not at this time. There are some exceptions: Organizing continues at airlines, for instance, which are governed by different organizing rules than most industries. But employer opposition to organizing has become pervasive in the larger economy, and the penalties for employers who violate workers’ rights as they attempt to unionize are so meager that such violations have become routine. For this and a multitude of other reasons, the share of unionized workers in the private sector dropped from roughly one-third in the mid-20th century to a scant 6.6 percent last year. In consequence, the share of the nation’s economy constituted by wages has sunk to its lowest level since World War II, and U.S. median household income continues to decline.

Unions face an existential problem: If they can’t represent more than a sliver of American workers on the job, what is their mission? Are there other ways they can advance workers’ interests even if those workers aren’t their members?

(Editors note; See also post on labor and the immigration struggles on www.antiracismdsa.blogspot.com)

Labor Day - thank a teacher

 Thank you for your work, your dedication and your commitment to the children and people you serve.

Labor Day means many things to many people—back to school, the end of summer, a needed respite from the daily grind. For us, as working people and union members, Labor Day stands for something special and profound.

It’s a day to honor the deep commitment each of us has to serve the children we teach, the families we heal and the communities we love. It’s a day to reflect on the values we hold dear—that every American should have access to a good job that can support a family, with access to affordable healthcare; that every child should be able to attend a high-quality public school in their neighborhood; that college should not be a luxury for the few but should be affordable for all; and that we should be able to retire with dignity after a lifetime of hard work, without worrying that we’ll be a burden to our loved ones.

Working people built this country—we did it together—brick by brick, school by school, town by town. Through these collective efforts, we built the middle class, each generation did a little better than the one before, we advanced the ideals of equality and justice, and we expanded opportunity for all. 

UFW march on Sacramento - Labor Day Weekend

     Over 3000  UFW farm workers and their supporters marched on the California Capitol in Sacramento on Sept. 4 insisting on Fair Treatment for Farm workers Now.   The march began August 23 in Madera. The march was organized by the United Farm Workers to reach Sacramento on Labor Day weekend.  Marchers  are pushing for the enactment of the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act and the right to be paid overtime after eight hours. 

    As the farm workers reached the capitol an apparent agreement was reached among legislators  to pass improvements of the existing Agricultural Labor Relations Act.  Gov. Jerry Brown and pro farm worker legislators  have struck a deal to give state regulators new powers that could help agriculture workers unionize.

The new  measures, introduced in the Legislature on Friday, would allow the state's Agriculture Labor Relations Board to certify a union if it finds that a grower has acted illegally to affect the outcome of a labor election. Currently the ALRB makes 5-10 decisions per year and few of the decisions  result in elections. The legislation would also accelerate the mediation process for workers in disputes with their employers.

   The Governor would not agree to the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers legislation already passed by the legislature  which would have permitted card check verification to hold a union election.  Governor Brown  and Republicans argue that the ALRB, passed in 1976, needs more time to be developed before changing a fundamental issue such as elections.

USW The Fighting Spirit

Celebrate Labor Day.  Fight Back.

Labor Day Message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

This Labor Day We Need Protest Marches

This Labor Day We Need Protest Marches Rather than Parades

THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2011

Labor Day is traditionally a time for picnics and parades. But this year is no picnic for American workers, and a protest march would be more appropriate than a parade.

Not only are 25 million unemployed or underemployed, but American companies continue to cut wages and benefits. The median wage is still dropping, adjusted for inflation. High unemployment has given employers extra bargaining leverage to wring out wage concessions.

All told, it’s been the worst decade for American workers in a century. According to Commerce Department data, private-sector wage gains over the last decade have even lagged behind wage gains during the decade of the Great Depression (4 percent over the last ten years, adjusted for inflation, versus 5 percent from 1929 to 1939).

Big American corporations are making more money, and creating more jobs, outside the United States than in it. If corporations are people, as the Supreme Court’s twisted logic now insists, most of the big ones headquartered here are rapidly losing their American identity.

Labor Day 2010

Happy Labor Day--the one day of the year set aside to honor America's workers.

More than 70 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "If I were a worker in a factory, the first thing I would do would be to join a union."

At the AFL-CIO's August Executive Council meeting, President Barack Obama referenced FDR's statement and took it further:

I think that's true for workers generally. I think if I was a coal miner, I'd want a union representing me to make sure that I was safe and you did not have some of the tragedies that we've been seeing in the coal industry. If I was a teacher, I'd want a union to make sure that the teachers' perspective was represented as we think about shaping an education system for our future.

That statement is a Labor Day treasure, and I want you to have the brief video that captures it.

Watch the video. *Click here to play* [ http://www.youtube.com/user/AFLCIONow#p/a/u/2/JkxYlvFmj9o

Labor Day Picnic

 LABOR DAY WORKING FAMILIES PICNIC 

Monday, September 6, 2010 

This year the Sacramento Central Labor Council will be celebrating its 113th year of representing working families by having a traditional 

Labor Day Picnic at: 

William Land Park 

Village Green Area 

Off of Freeport Blvd. and 

Sutterville Road 

11:00-3:00PM 

This 

Labor Day : Richard Trumka

Labor Day, Bill Moyers

BILL MOYERS: In past decades, the voices of the labor movement swelled the Democratic chorus. Then, Democratic presidential candidates officially opened their campaigns in the city that was the symbolic heart of union country - Detroit, then the engine of the booming auto industry. Standing in Cadillac Square on Labor Day was a Democrat's way of saying our hearts are one.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: I have come here today on a day that belongs to the working men and women of America...
BILL MOYERS: John Kennedy kicked of his campaign for president in Cadillac Square in 1960, praising unions that fought for education, for better health care, even for family farms. Kennedy declared that as unions go, so goes America.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: We share a common, deep-seated belief in the workings of free collective bargaining and in the growth of free, responsible unions, and, unlike our opponents, we don't just believe that on Labor Day.
BILL MOYERS: These were the golden years for organized labor. Union bargaining power helped lift other worker's boats - and the yachts of their employers - in a rising tide of prosperity that moved millions of families into the middle class.
But that seems now another age, another world. Union membership has plummeted from Kennedy's day - down to less than 8% of the private sector workforce. Millions of union jobs have been lost to cheap labor abroad, and to consumers who demand cheaper prices. Corporations have warred relentlessly on unions, in league with a conservative movement that regards business as its own ATM machine. Collusion between government and corporations in the global economy has left workers to fend for themselves. The results have been disastrous.
Job security - slashed. Pensions - slashed. Healthcare benefits - slashed. In a golden age of profit-taking and extravagant wealth for CEOs, compensation for employees, as a share of the total economy, has reached a new low.
And even with the Democratic party, labor's place at the table can not be taken for granted. President Bill Clinton after all championed NAFTA, the trade deal that sent manufacturing jobs overseas. Barack Obama has wavered on his opposition to reopening NAFTA. Democrats in Congress are being inundated with money from corporations. And in Denver this week, those same corporations were hosting lavish parties - captured here by ABC News' Investigative Unit shelling out millions to wine and dine Democratic officials.
BRIAN ROSS: "Lobbyists gone wild!"
BILL MOYERS: A house divided can hardly be called the home of working people.
So for all the rhetoric and cheer in Denver, workers have little to celebrate this Labor Day -- they've been falling farther behind for years now. But across the country, there are growing signs of defiance:
You see it as California nurses pushed for universal health care... you see it as workers march in Los Angeles for a living wage...you see it in immigrants fighting back against a system that hires them to pick and prepare our food, yet pays them pitiful wages and treats them as criminals.
It just might be that that same spirit of anger roused by injustice...that old and enduring hunger of working men and women for a better deal...it just might be the spark that catches fire, lighting the way once again for politicians returning to Cadillac Square on Labor Day.
That's it for the JOURNAL. We'll see you again next week. I'm Bill Moyers.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08292008/transcript4.html
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