All Workers Have Benefited From Unions - Tom Clementi/PostCrescent

[WillyT]

All workers have benefited from unions
Tom Clementi - PostCrescent
5:25 AM, Apr. 7, 2011

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Weekend. The word itself creates a smile. For most of us, that time between Friday afternoon and Monday morning is ours, almost an inviolate right. The current controversy regarding the political-labor situation in Wisconsin has made me think more about words like “weekend,” “vacations” and “40-hour-week.” So many Americans somehow think that these things have always existed.

The airwaves and press are filled with the pros and cons of Gov. Scott Walker’s proposals, and exactly what “rights” public union employees have. Even in this newspaper, some letters have stated that collective bargaining isn’t a right. When I read statements like that, I’m reminded of my grandfather’s warning about taking things for granted. He arrived in America at age 13 and went to work in a Milwaukee factory, six days a week, maybe 15 cents per hour. No vacations. No overtime pay. Not much in terms of workplace safety. No fringe benefits.

That was 1912, and we’ve come a long way since. But exactly how did we get here? Those improvements in workers’ lives didn’t just happen. They were part of a long, arduous struggle that began in the 1870s with that word — “union” — that factory owners and other businessmen so strongly opposed. Union organizers were called un-American socialists and anarchists.

It wasn’t until the 1930s that the federal government recognized unions and the 40-hour week was established. Two generations of American workers fought for things we now take for granted. In 1959, under a bipartisan state Legislature, Wisconsin became the first state to grant collective bargaining rights to municipal employees — firemen, policemen, sanitation workers, etc. In 1967, a Republican Legislature and a Republican governor (yes, Republican) extended that right to state employees.

Collective bargaining not a right? It sure is; federal and state law has said so. And since when do we Americans remove rights from our own citizens?

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More: http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20110407/APC06/110407012/Tom-Clementi-column-All-workers-benefited-from-unions?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

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