Question about Unions and Workers' Rights

[Chichiri]

I'd like to know if the following statement is a historically accurate one to make, and if not why not. This is for the sake of a discussion I'm currently engaged in.

"Nearly every substantive right that workers have comes from the historical actions of unions. This is true whether that worker is presently a union member or not. As time passed after unions fought for and won (often at a price in blood) these rights, they became standardized."

[Brickbat]

1. Why wouldn't it be?

[OHdem10]

2. Yes. For the most part the unions have set pay and other

standards in this country.

Union workers receive certain pay, the private non
union workers would bring their pay scale close.

[Chichiri]

7. That's pretty muhc what I figured.

Thanks. :)

[roguevalley]

3. Completely true. some died for them, killed by the corporate owners

that didn't want to treat them as anything but feudal serfs. without unions we would not be recognizable as a country. why do you suppose fat cats hate them? They are as doom to their greed.

[dionysus]

4. it's accurate. people died in the past to get us things we've taken for granted.

[walldude]

5. 8 hour days, 40 hour work weeks, 15 minute breaks

vacation days, sick days, benefits, all courtesy of the Unions. Once upon a time Union was, like liberal, not a dirty word.

[oldlib]

6. I have never belonged to a union.

I do, however, strongly support them. My father and my older brother were union members. My older brother was a painter back in the fifties and he would design and paint entries to the yearly "Salmon Derby Parade." He once told me that he would never use red as a scheme for a float because of a possible communist implication. Support the unions.

[Scuba]

8. Absolutely true. Goes back to guilds in the 16th century or earlier.

[Bandit]

9. There are a few safety laws that were created

I recall reading about a sewing company that had several hundred young women locked in an assembly building which caught on fire and many of those women lost their lives. I believe the forty years of Democratic Control established many OSHA laws without there being a Union issue made beforehand. Without Unions though there would be no middle class in America. "Prevailing Wage" is a Huge issue at the moment and people better pay attention. Republicans very much want the average wage of Americans to be considerably lower than it currently is. They are having an all out assault right now in making that happen.. American workers better wake the fuck up whether they belong to a Union or not, their quality of life is under attack.

[oldlib]

10. Republicans have always despised Unions.

Any support for the working man is trouble in their minds. They don't see any problem with their support from corporations and they don't see the comparison with support from Unions on our side.