Labor Day 2017: Remember Workers' Rights, Support Labor Unions

Take This Job And...

Happy Labor Day everyone! Saw this timely Joel Pett cartoon on GoComics and thought I'd share it...
Source: Joel Pett (GoComics)

Support American Unions

Currently, right-to-work provisions (either by law or by constitutional provision) exist in 28 U.S. states, mostly in the southern and western United States, but also including the Midwestern states of Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Now that Trump is in power, labor unions (and the workers they represent) will be under constant attack as Trump's cabinet and the Republican Congress quietly and methodically undo the decades of progress made by the working class.

---

Trump—Actively Working To Make Workers' Lives Worse

Undermining Workers’ Pay And Financial Security:

• The Obama-era overtime rule was intended to take effect December 1, 2016, but it was blocked by a federal judge before it had a chance to produce results. Obama's rule would have raised the salary threshold below which workers must get overtime pay. The Trump Labor Department has begun a process to revise the rule to make it cover fewer workers. That means a lot of salaried employees will have to work overtime without getting the time-and-half pay bump.
• The Department of Labor is now proposing to partially roll back new safeguards that would help protect shipyard and construction workers from lung disease.
• Trump executive orders have begun the process for eliminating agency programs and regulations by assigning perceived economic costs to them and discounting the benefits they provide.

Why American Workers Should Support Unions

First, if you want a job with a living wage and decent benefits, then you want a strong labor movement:

• When unions decline, many workers—whether organized or not—see a drop in their standard of living. And driving down wages does not help the American economy, which depends on strong consumer spending.
• In light of the ongoing attack on workers' rights, working people need unions to preserve the gains they have made: Unions struggled for many decades to get laws mandating an eight-hour day, a minimum wage and a ban on child labor.

A strong labor movement enriches democracy:

• Many unions work for more than just good wages and benefits; organized labor has also campaigned for access to affordable health care and for protecting the rights of immigrant workers.

Solidarity

If you support workers' rights then you should also support the right for workers to organize and join unions. That may mean:

• making more thoughtful purchases the next time you have a choice between buying something made in America and buying something made in a foreign sweatshop.
• not crossing a picket line
• pushing back against local politicians who blame unions for everything

Source: Visual Propaganda: Ideology in Art

---

Americans' Support for Labor Unions Continues to Recover

According to the 2015 installment of Gallup's annual Work and Education survey, Americans' approval of labor unions has jumped five percentage points to 58% over the past year, and is now at its highest point since 2008, when 59% approved. A majority approve of unions, and most would like to see unions' power strengthened, or at least maintained.
Source: Americans' Support for Labor Unions Continues to Recover (Lydia Saad; Gallup)