{"id":42005,"date":"2017-09-01T15:48:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T19:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/?p=42005"},"modified":"2017-09-01T15:48:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T19:48:31","slug":"labor-day-thank-your-union-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/labor-day-thank-your-union-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day \u2013 Thank your Union day","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By John Risch, National Legislative Director, SMART Transportation Division<\/em><br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27151\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27151\" style=\"width: 121px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-27151\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/John_risch_031814_web.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"121\" height=\"150\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27151\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Risch<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nEnjoy yourself this Labor Day weekend, provided you\u2019re lucky enough to get the weekend off. In my 30 plus years working freight rail, I worked many a Labor Day weekend, but I am lucky to get this one off and plan to march with our Nebraska members in the Omaha Labor Day parade.<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s Labor Day all about anyway? While it\u2019s evolved into the last summer picnic or camping trip or a time to hit the back-to-school sales at the mall, that wasn\u2019t the original intent of Labor Day.<br \/>\nLabor Day was started to honor the American worker, or as the Department of Labor states: \u201cLabor Day is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.\u201d<br \/>\nOn Labor Day I like to reflect on the progress America\u2019s workers have made in the past 135 years, since the first Labor Day. In 1884, there were no weekends off, overtime pay, minimum wage laws, workplace safety regulations, employer provided health insurance, pensions, paid vacations and the list goes on.<br \/>\nEach and every one of those gains have been made because workers \u2013 through their unions \u2013 have demanded them and won, over the objections of their employers. It was and continues to be America\u2019s unions that have improved American workplaces.<br \/>\nUnion density in America has dropped significantly from its high in 1954. Much of the reason is weak labor laws and fierce employer resistance to workers who try to organize. With that decline in union density, worker income has declined as well. We have all heard the adage, \u201cThe rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer\u201d which is statistically true and the primary reason is that America\u2019s unionization rate has fallen. This gutting of America\u2019s middle-class causes all kinds of socio-economic problems.<br \/>\nThe fix to all of this is to fix America\u2019s labor laws and enforcement to make it easier for workers to form unions and negotiate the fair pay and benefits they deserve.<br \/>\nWorkers through their unions built America\u2019s middle-class and the decline of our country\u2019s middle-class is largely attributable to the decline in America\u2019s union density. Improved labor laws with strong enforcement will revitalize the labor movement and help rebuild our middle class.<br \/>\nSo as you relax this weekend, take a moment and think about what unions have done in our country to make life better for not just union members, but all who work for wages.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By John Risch, National Legislative Director, SMART Transportation Division Enjoy yourself this Labor Day weekend, provided you\u2019re lucky enough to get the weekend off. In my 30 plus years working freight rail, I worked many a Labor Day weekend, but I am lucky to get this one off and plan to march with our Nebraska [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":6,"featured_media":38845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,12,39,986,9,17,18,25],"tags":[752,1253,3295],"member_types":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Labor Day \u2013 Thank your Union day - SMART Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/labor-day-thank-your-union-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Labor Day \u2013 Thank your Union day - SMART Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By John Risch, National Legislative Director, SMART Transportation Division Enjoy yourself this Labor Day weekend, provided you\u2019re lucky enough to get the weekend off. 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