Labor Uniting for the American Worker This Holiday
September 2, 2010 by cmccabe
Filed under Featured News, Jobs, NEA, Top Stories
By Cynthia McCabe
For 31 million Americans, the impending Labor Day holiday won’t mean a welcome day off of work to enjoy a cookout or wring out the last of summer’s delights. It will be yet another day that they remain unemployed, unable to support themselves, their families and the American economy.
The American labor movement continues to call attention to their plight, with a renewed focus this holiday on getting geared up to elect pro-worker candidates in the November mid-term elections.
With the election only two months away, the holiday is a traditional benchmark in campaign seasons. Starting next week, groups representing workers — both employed and unemployed — will fan out across the country on behalf of pro-labor candidates. In a press conference Wednesday, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, said the massive mobilization will make for a “defining” Labor Day.
“We will either rebuild a fundamentally different economy that values hard work and a strong middle class—or turn back toward one that puts corporate interest before people,” Trumka said.
The AFL-CIO released a Labor Day 2010 ad calling for policies that will rebuild an American middle class. It will air this weekend during NASCAR, Major League Baseball games and college football games.
The Union of the Unemployed or “UCubed” is pulling no punches with an ad set to hit the Internet on Labor Day, calling out politicians who repeatedly voted against jobless benefits and job creation in the last session of Congress, Wall Street special interests that pump money into anti-worker campaigns, and a certain cable network for serving as a sounding board for both.
“Well, here’s a news flash for them and the folks at Fox News,” the coming “Bite Back” spot states, “America’s jobless are tougher, more tenacious and totally focused on one thing – getting back to work. We want jobs. We want to rebuild our lives. We want to enjoy the fruits of our labor. And we want to see our families and our nation prosper once again.”
UCubed is also asking for the unemployed to share their stories about their search to find jobs and their pleas for representatives and senators to help.
NEA, fresh from its successful effort to help save 161,000 educators’ jobs (although that fight continues), is offering myriad Labor Day resources for anyone wanting to learn more about the American labor movement.
The holiday itself honors the American worker and acknowledges the value and dignity of work and its role in American life. The first Labor Day was celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York. Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. On June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.
NEA’s resources include historical timelines of the labor movement, lesson plans and research pieces examining the need for continued work on behalf of the American worker.
Photo: AFL-CIO
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Wow, how can NEA claim that the the Edjobs bill is a success. Almost every district around the US is not using this money to bring back teachers. It’s going to restore furlough days(pay cuts) for existing teachers or being reserved for next year’s budget deficit.
If NEA really wanted to save teachers across America they should have demanded the Education department put very strict language in how the funds could be used.
There are countless teachers on layoff status that put everything they had into getting the Edjobs bill passed, only to find out that districts are not using the funds to save their jobs, and unions are doing little to help the situation because they are desperately trying to maintain their salaries and pensions, when everyone knows that states simply cannot afford it anymore. It’s a sad situation.
A few years ago, during good economic times, teachers received raises or better pensions, but now a few years later in a horrible economy, unions refuse to even negotiate for at least freezing salaries. They would rather just shift the burden to younger teachers who are low on the seniority list. The system is broken, yet we are not trying to do our part to fix it. We keep hoping that states will magically raise/collect more taxes to support education. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, so instead of continually laying off the next generation of teachers, the NEA needs to step up and figure out what we’re going to do for the next 5-10 years.
There is no way we’re going to get another Edjobs stimulus bill passed in the future after districts refused to use it on actually hiring teachers, and unions failing to back up their young teachers. We don’t want to rock the boat I guess.
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American unions, including NEA, abandoned the reason most people think they join unions for: the contradictory interests of workers and employers. Today’s unions do not unite people. They divide them by job, industry, race, sex, public vs private sector, teachers vs students, etc. The union movement has no sense of solidarity whatsoever. Job actions are left to swing in the wind by “brother and sister” unions (see the UAW, the California grocery strike, etc). Labor bosses, like Van Roekel enjoy incomes far beyond the dreams of most of the rank and file members, in his case about $450,000 a year. In the case of past president Weaver, $686,949. This means they live very different lives, identify more with the rich than workers or the dispossessed. They make up a Quisling element that cannot be trusted. With sellout after sellout demolishing school worker contracts, we need an entirely new movement to resist in what is, clearly, a situation of class and empire’s war.
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