A Labor Day Message for 2023

"Workplace improvements contribute substantially to middle-class financial stability and worker well-being." -2023 Treasury Department report

(SAN FRANCISCO, CA.) - Why do we need unions, anyway? Because they are essential for America. Unions are the only large-scale movement left in America that serve as a countervailing balance against corporate power, acting in the economic interest of the middle class.

But the decline of unions over the past few decades has left corporations and the rich with essentially no powerful opposition. However, labor’s long decline may be over.

From strikes to new union contracts, an uptick in union membership, labor unions are particularly strong.

Remember, corporations did not all of a sudden give workers two days off each week, which we now call weekends, or paid vacations and sick leave, or rights at the workplace, or pensions, or overtime pay.

No. Virtually all the benefits we have at work, whether in the public or private sector, are because unions fought hard and long against big business who did everything they could to prevent giving us these rights.

According to the August 23, 2023, Treasury Department report, "unions raise the wages of their members by 10 to 15 percent. Unions also improve fringe benefits and workplace procedures such as retirement plans, workplace grievance policies, and predictable scheduling.

"These workplace improvements contribute substantially to middle-class financial stability and worker well-being."

You may take issue with a particular union’s position on an issue, but remember: they are the only real organized check on the power of the business community in this country.