Preserve freedom to join together
On Labor Day, we recognize and honor the achievements of all of America’s working people. We pause to take stock of our economy and how it is treating the Wisconsin and the American worker.
As we enjoy the fellowship of our loved ones at a barbecue, fireworks or community event, it is important to reflect on our economy and the best ways working people can come together to build an economy that works for all of us.
Our economy is not like the weather; it does not just happen. As citizens we create, shape and help form our economy.
Today, our economy remains badly out of balance. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 2016 was an obscene 347 to 1. Meanwhile, many corporations are shipping jobs overseas and stashing profits offshore to avoid paying taxes. To add insult to injury, corporate-backed politicians continue to try to take away the freedoms unions have won for all of us.
Yet inequality is not inevitable. Our economy is nothing more than a set of rules. We can, and we must, elect leaders who will rewrite those rules so wages are livable, benefits are strong, work is safe, retirement is secure and the freedom to negotiate is universal. There are laws that protect us in our community; there need to be laws to protect us in the workplace.
In growing numbers, working families across the country are taking action to win the freedom to negotiate a fair return on our work so we can provide for our families. Working people in unions provide a pivotal public service by raising the concerns of regular Americans alongside those of powerful corporate interests, such as business groups and CEOs, in the policy debates that shape our lives.
America’s unions are diverse, like America, and help erase disparities in pay and benefits across demographics by advocating fair treatment and improving everyone’s pay and benefits. From coast to coast, people are marching this Labor Day for higher wages, union rights and a better work-life balance. A strong majority of Americans have a positive view of unions. Working people are organizing in new and innovative ways, from traditional manufacturing to higher education to the digital economy.
Yet in Wisconsin, we are lowering wages and attacking workplace rights — moving backward by attacking the freedom of both public sector and private sector workers to stand together in union in the workplace. We have lowered wages by repealing prevailing wage standards in the construction industry and outlawing community-based Project Labor Agreements that help local Wisconsin workers make livable wages in the building and construction trades.
Whether it’s the expansion of misleading “right to work” laws, rollbacks on workplace safety or the assault on our pay and benefits by politicians who do not know the first thing about living paycheck to paycheck, it is critical that we continue to organize and mobilize around an agenda that gives all working people the freedom to join together.
Working people must continue to join together for higher paychecks and the ability to balance life with work. All workers deserve the freedom to disconnect from work responsibilities to take a loved one to the doctor, attend a parentteacher conference or catch a child’s ball game. It is by standing together that we fight back against corporate-backed politicians who for decades have chipped away, bit by bit, at the freedoms unions have won for all of us.
This Labor Day, as we celebrate the contributions of working families, let’s also pledge to do the hard work of transforming our economy so every single American can work for a better life.