Happy Labor Day! E&B participated in organized Labor’s annual celebration at the Pittsburgh Labor Day Parade. This year, Pittsburgh was lucky to have Vice President Joe Biden in attendance to give our celebration some real star power. We hope that the Vice President’s attendance will bring some real attention to the strides that Pittsburgh has made this year with its alternative organizing structures (i.e. Fight Back Pittsburgh and other innovative organizations) and its progressive programs (i.e. Paid Sick Days Legislation). Labor Day is a true celebration of our movement, but it’s the celebration of a movement that is at a crossroads.
In 2015, about 11% of American workers are organized. Standing alone, that number can be very discouraging. However, what we here at E&B choose to focus on this Labor Day is the fact that those 11% of organized American workers set the standards across the board for salaries, benefits and working conditions. All men and women who are unorganized and are paid a living wage, have a chance for advancement through hard work, have access to healthcare, retirement benefits, or any number of other perks should thank a Union member today.
Today we should be thankful that we enjoy a forty-hour work week, a weekend, and Social Security. We should be thankful that our children get to go to school instead of reporting to a mine or factory to work. We should be thankful that we had brave men and women come before us who fought, bled and died for the rights that we currently enjoy.
However, not all Americans have the rights that our forefathers and mothers fought so valiantly to earn. We have large employers (some of whom get to claim that they are non-profits) who refuse to pay their employees a living wage. We have large employers who continually punish their employees for attempting to form a union. We have large employers who fail to follow federal and state laws and get away with it because they rule their employees with fear and intimidation. In 2015, this is unacceptable.
It’s no secret that the Labor Movement is at a crossroads. Union-busting is at an all-time high and right-to-work-for-less is better funded than ever. This is the time when we must make the decision: we can choose to control our destiny or let Corporate America control it for us.
So on this Labor Day we here at E&B are taking a vow—we will stand shoulder to shoulder with working men and women who are striving for workplace justice, we will work to strengthen the labor movement, and we will continue to strategize for new ways to organize the unrepresented. There’s no better time than Labor Day to remind ourselves that the labor movement has to be effective, dynamic, and innovative; take the vow and stand with us as we stand for working men and women having a real voice in their workplaces.
Two of our biggest supporters, Art Bundick and Bill Sterner, at the Pittsburgh Labor Day Parade
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