Thank a union if you like weekends...

[PatrickforO]

Many Americans forget how much we working people all owe to the union members who fought, bled and too often died forcing big corporations to give workers reasonable benefits. Since tomorrow is Labor Day, here is the list.

Here's the link: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/05/16/1092027/-Thanks-a-Union-36-Ways-Unions-Have-Improved-Your-Life?detail=emailclassic

You might have seen it before, but here are 36 reasons we should all thank unions:

Weekends
All Breaks at Work, including your Lunch Breaks
Paid Vacation
FMLA
Sick Leave
Social Security
Minimum Wage
Civil Rights Act/Title VII (Prohibits Employer Discrimination)
8-Hour Work Day
Overtime Pay
Child Labor Laws
Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
40 Hour Work Week
Worker's Compensation (Worker's Comp)
Unemployment Insurance
Pensions
Workplace Safety Standards and Regulations
Employer Health Care Insurance
Collective Bargaining Rights for Employees
Wrongful Termination Laws
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Whistleblower Protection Laws
Employee Polygraph Protect Act (Prohibits Employer from using a lie detector test on an employee)
Veteran's Employment and Training Services (VETS)
Compensation increases and Evaluations (Raises)
Sexual Harassment Laws
Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
Holiday Pay
Employer Dental, Life, and Vision Insurance
Privacy Rights
Pregnancy and Parental Leave
Military Leave
The Right to Strike
Public Education for Children
Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 (Requires employers pay men and women equally for the same amount of work)
Laws Ending Sweatshops in the United States

[leftstreet]

1. DURec

[beam me up scottie]

2. K & R!

[guillaumeb]

3. Many union MEMBERS also forget.

From a 44 year retired union member.

[flying rabbit]

4. K&R nt

[marylandblue]

5. From someone who used to be very active in a union

Most of unionism's great days are behind it. Most of the rights on that list are over 40 years old. Unions are, in fact, narrow, self-seeking groups. And I should know, I was once vice-president of my local. I saw a lot of the infighting up close. I saw other unions sell out another union(mine). I saw a lot of crap.

But I'm still pro-union, with a big IF. IF they go back to what they were before August 3, 1981. That's the day the Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization (PATCO) went on strike. And Reagan fired them all two days later. What did the other unions do? Nothing. Every airline union in America should have gone out in sympathy. That would have shown union solidarity. But they didn't. Scabs and military controllers were brought in. Planes kept flying, so no-one cared. That was the beginning of the end of unionism in America.

Now it's a bit late. There aren't enough people represented by unions. Unions don't have the power they once did. Because they didn't stick together. And mostly still don't. So no, I am not going to thank unions for things they did before I was born, not when they couldn't protect my job five years ago. And not when other unions actively campaigned against mine.

If unions want to have to a seat at the table, they need to atone for their sins. Not for the one against me. I landed on my feet, so I don't have much to complain about. But for what they did to themselves starting on August 3, 1981.

[Expecting Rain]

6. One does have to wonder how differently history might have turned out...

if there had been massive resistance to the PATCO firings, by unions and everyone else on our side of the issue?

I think you are right about that being a pivotal moment.

[PatrickforO]

9. I hear what you're saying. It does seem that the best days of unions are behind.

My grandfather was a union organizer in the 1920s and 1930s. They were getting mobbed up even then.

The problem is, though, that without some kind of collective bargaining, workers will continue to lose benefits, have their wages driven down, and even more insidious things, such as the erosion of safety on the job.

The key isn't unions per-se. The key is some kind of collective bargaining organizations.

It is very frustrating, you know, to an idealist like me - seeing the desperate need for unions to step up. Now is the time, with labor shortages everywhere, to begin demanding things like universal healthcare not tied to employment, a return of defined pension plans, more stringent workplace safety measures, and a return to reasonable economic security for workers - so they don't get laid off at the drop of a pin just to bump the quarterly profits. That's sick.

Realistically, we cannot go without global trade agreements, but we have to have some provisions in there that actually benefit American workers. And what about training? Most of those old manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. The factories that have pulled out of small town America are gone for good in most cases. Now, the once proud and erstwhile middle class workers in these towns are working poor - no economic security, struggling to make ends meet, deferring maintenance on homes and cars, and generally groaning under wage slavery of places like Wal-Mart.

So how can unions, or collective bargaining groupings of workers, begin pressuring the big corporations who have had their way with people for far too long? Americans are proud. They hate being working poor. All most people really want is to make ends meet and have hope for a better future for themselves and their children. Healthcare, comfortable retirement, affordable college. These are the kitchen table issues that politicians and unions across this nation and the rest of the world should be addressing.

Power never gives up anything without being forced.

This is why we need to resurrect the unions. Breathe new life into them. Turn them upside down and then let them be reborn.

So...you think that's gonna happen?

Nah...but...

[dalton99a]

7. Kick

[Delmette2.0]

8. Every time I would hear " thank god it's friday"

I would respond with "no, thank a union. God wanted us to work six days a week. Unions want us to work five."

[marylandblue]

10. LOL

[treestar]

11. someone said that

right wingers who are against unions should have to go to work today!

[white_wolf]

12. Anyone who's had to work retail or fast-food has a small glimpse of what things were like before

Obviously, it's not near as bad now as it used to be, but fast-food and retail workers don't get weekends. Sometimes they don't get holidays. To be fair, I'm not sure what the solution is since people still have to eat and shop on the weekends, but it is still unfair to those doing the jobs. Especially, considering they're lucky if they're getting more than minimum wage.

[Hortensis]

13. When people yearn for manufacturing to return, they're yearning for UNION benefits.

No one really yearns to stand all day in a factory. It's the MONEY, stupid! It's guaranteed vacation time and worker rights.



"Labor and workers’ rights: When unions are strong, America is strong." -- Hillary Clinton

[former9thward]

14. Some of those things came from unions. Many did not.

Having Sundays off originally came from the churches, who were opposed to any work on Sunday, not unions.

The Civil Rights laws came from demonstrations and in some cases people giving up their lives in protests. The craft unions fought civil rights consistently to maintain all white unions. In my union, The United Steelworkers, minorities had to sue the union to get minorities into the craft apprentices.

Employer Health insurance certainly did not come from unions. It came from WW II. Employers were under a wage freeze during the war and to attract workers, given the labor shortage caused by the war, they started giving medical insurance as a benefit.

Social Security had about a dozen parents but it mainly came as a need to address large scale poverty of the elderly in the Depression. The law was passed in 1935 which was before industrial unions had any real presence.

Unions certainly have been good, overall, but to say they are responsible for every single good thing in society is really not true.