It’s been 133 years since New York City celebrated the nation’s first Labor Day holiday in 1882 to acknowledge the role workers play in the economy.
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Yet most of those battles were fought and won long ago.
But the first Monday in September also honors the American worker. That’s history, says McIntyre, a labor economist.
Workers put in their time, year after year, because they have a vision of what they hope their efforts will yield – a rewarding career, sufficient financial resources for their family, and so on. Wage theft is a crime that is common across many industries. Coincidentally, numerous professions represented by labor unions will spend the holiday at work.
The fact is, though, that the majority of working people in our area are not members of unions.
Labor Day is much more than the unofficial end to summer. Their concern is to keep labor cheap.
A $15 living wage.
These policies were not given to workers by employers. Expect more protests like those in mid-April, which occurred in hundreds of cities across the country. And fast-food workers continued a multistate campaign, Fight for $15, for higher wages in that industry. “A lot of people got excited, and it became a coalition”. It is a matter of justice and community. That should be no surprise, since Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza is the special projects director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The Governor and the Republican controlled Legislature stripped working men and women of their workplace rights, first for public servants and more recently for nearly everyone else. Target, Walmart and Kmart are among the bigger companies that have stayed open on the holiday.
In 1894, the U.S. Congress enacted the federal legal holiday on the first Monday in September of each year. Today, that CEO earns 300 times more. Shoppers still pack the stores on holidays, but those opposed are applauding Nordstrom, Costco and other retailers that stay closed on Thanksgiving. Today is a good day to ponder the question of why Brady was able to challenge an arbitrary and unfair punishment from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell? According to a recent Gallup poll, almost 80 percent of your fellow Americans agree: no worker should be forced to pay union fees as a condition of employment.
“It’s early to bed, children”, their parents say, “because Tuesday you go to school”. The results and benefits of joining a union nationally are quite clear. Some believe it was Peter J. McGuire of the carpenters’ union while others claim it was Matthew Maguire of the machinists’ union.
Safety in the air. Many people went to jail, lost their jobs, and were beaten; some died. Many in the US would find it hard to imagine living in a country where these things weren’t a given.
Next up: The flight attendants are tackling the issue of “bleed air” during flights, which they allege could be poisoning cabin crews. Underwritten by powerful corporate interests, some elected officials are moving to crush unions and hollow out the middle class. In some states, the very labor unions that helped build the middle class are now the targets of withering political attacks that threaten their existence. The Central Labor Union of New York appoints a committee to organize a picnic and parade in honor of working people.
The state has blocked local municipalities from…
Temp workers unite! Or will they?
Retail workers should never be forbidden from discussing the job in off-hours or on social media.
The board broadened the definition to include indirect forms of control.
Equally sad, there are still many employers and managers that don’t get it, either.
If it sticks, it might affect McDonald’s and other companies that work on a franchise model.
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The state federation is also investing in its future through our Young Workers program.
