Monday, September 2, 2019

Labor Day: Celebrating Workers



Source
Happy Labor Day!  More than just a day off work (yay!!), parades and picnics, Labor Day is a day to honor our progress as a country towards fair & safe working conditions.  We also honor those who fought to bring us these labor rights, some of whom lost their lives in doing so.  Here are 3 short blurbs from various websites to provide a little background for Labor Day.
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"In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages."
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day-1 

"Only in the 1930s did the tide turn for workers. With Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House, allies in Congress, and the first female cabinet member in Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, a series of reforms were implemented. In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act that established the eight-hour day and five-day week for wage-workers. But don’t solely thank the politicians." https://time.com/5663465/labor-day-union-history/


[Martin Luther King, Jr's statement] “'There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American whether he [or she] is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer,' said King."
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/09/05/labor-day-remember-martin-luther-kings-last-campaign-was-workers-rights

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