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US Labor History
There is not a single US citizen who has not benefited from the struggles, sacrifices
and victories of the US labor movement. Things we take for granted--child labor laws,
unemployment insurance, the 8-hour day, the minimum wage, health and safety
regulations--are a direct result of the strikes, sit-downs, slow-downs, and actions of
organized workers. Unfortunately, most of this history has been effectively purged from
our collective memory. The US political establishment portrays unions as out of date and
somehow "no longer necessary."
The social conditions which gave birth to unions are still very much evident today,
however. More people than ever must work as a wage-earner to survive, and wages and
working conditions have been in a downward spiral since the end of the 1960s. Only the
collective action of a union allows working people the leverage they need to earn a better
wage, or have any real power at the work place. Though the industrial basis of our economy
has given way to one based on services and information, the fundamental inequality
inherent in wage-labor has not changed one iota. Data processors, teaching assistants,
fast-food workers, computer programmers and other service workers need collective
bargaining as much as autoworkers and steelworkers.
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