Brianna Kohr

 Brianna Kohr, a freshman at UCLA, is quite active in her community and a member of the school's Honor College. Her essay on the necessity of unions easily gained the scholarship committee's attention.

Why America Still Needs Labor Unions

"What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge. In fact more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful and childhood more happy and bright."

Samuel Gompers

When Samuel Gompers delivered his famous impromptu oratory now fondly referred to as the “More! More! More!” speech before a mass gathering of Chicago workingmen in 1893, the American labor movement was still in its infancy. Just seven years before, in 1886, Gompers became the founding president of the American Federation of Labor, America’s first labor union. This was a bleak time in the history of the American workingman. The health insurance, sick pay, overtime pay, vacation time and pension plans we now take for granted were unthinkable luxuries in the early days of union organization. Every day, workers feared for their job security, knowing that if they didn’t meet grueling quotas, they could be fired on the spot without the benefit of union legal representation. The Constitutional right of all Americans to peaceably assemble was constantly violated by union busters who rooted members out of their jobs and prevented unions from instituting collective bargaining practices. Hence, American workers became the victims of wage slavery. In revolting and dangerous conditions, these workers toiled for unreasonably long hours each day. Women and minorities were the victims of wage discrimination, and instead of spending their days in school, children as young as eight were subjected to slave labor. These men, women and children were dehumanized and robbed of their dignity; their fundamental rights were ignored.

This is a far cry from the situation of the American workingman today, who owes his worker benefits, job security and right to bargain for fair wages, hours and working conditions to the existence of labor unions. America’s underrepresented minorities and women owe thanks to labor unions for ensuring their equality in the workplace. Because of labor unions, American children are where they belong: behind desks in schools instead of conveyer belts in factories. American needs labor unions because they stand for the very essence of what it means to be an American. Unions preserve the institution of the American family and protect the Constitutional rights that lie at the heart of this country.

Without a doubt, union rights are family rights. Union efforts ensure that employers must take the needs of working families into account and respect their rights. Before union representation lobbied for workers’ benefits, employers showed no mercy on sick employees or their family members. Because of tireless union efforts, today’s American workers enjoy the benefit of sick pay, and extended paid leave is available through disability benefits. Additionally, union efforts are responsible for the health insurance benefits of American workers. I cannot begin to express how instrumental these benefits have been in the preservation of my own family. When my dad dislocated his knee, not only did his company provide him with paid leave on disability, his surgery was covered by his company health insurance plan. When my mother was pregnant with my two younger siblings and I, she had no difficulty taking paid temporary leave and returning to her job. Countless times my parents have benefited from sick pay when either they or my siblings have fallen ill. Because of my father’s company provided health insurance plan, my family was able to afford the open heart surgery that saved my life as a child. My family’s indebtedness to labor unions is not unique. Any worker who has used health insurance, taken a sick day or benefited from disability leave, virtually every American, owes their thanks to labor unions.

Unions have also successfully lobbied for safety standards that prevent dangerous accidents in the workplace and provide worker’s compensation for those who do encounter an accident on the job. The sad reality that occurs when unions are shut out of the workplace is apparent in the case of my childhood babysitter, a former employee of Home Depot, an openly anti-union company. Due to the company’s unsafe working environment, she sustained a serious back injury when a heavy box fell off a forklift on top of her. Because of the lack of union representation, she received no disability benefits, had to finance the majority of back surgery and rehabilitation on her own and was forced to find a new job. Her family was devastated by this accident. With a main breadwinner suddenly out of work and incurring huge medical expenses, they were forced to move to a rundown apartment, and the family’s college age son had to discontinue his education in favor of working a minimum wage job. An immigrant from Laos, my childhood babysitter could not read or write and was therefore helpless against the juggernaut Home Depot Company, which at the time barred union membership for its employees. If she only had the benefits of a union appointed lawyer, I have no doubt she and her family would have been protected from the financial burden of immediate unemployment and exorbitant medical expenses the company should have covered.

Labor unions are responsible for the fair pay and reasonable working hours that help American families to remain strong and stable. They are perhaps the most important factors sustaining American family life. Without unions, there would be no minimum wage, no limit on working hours and certainly no vacation time. Collective bargaining for fair wages enables workers to provide adequately for their families, while negotiation for appropriate hours ensures that working parents are able to spend time nurturing their children. Vacation time provides families with room to relax, bond and strengthen family ties. Before unions played a prominent role in American society, families suffered from the poor wages and unreasonable hours demanded by their employers. This is strikingly evident in The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s groundbreaking expose of early twentieth century working conditions. The novel follows a young Lithuanian immigrant named Jurgis Rudkus, who represents American workers before unions offered them much protection. At his job in a Chicago meatpacking plant, Jurgis witnesses unbelievable labor practices that violate every single one of the rights unions now defend, including fair wages and working hours. One of the novel’s most striking examples of wage slavery occurs when the meatpacking plants “hire” extra men, driving down wages by creating a labor surplus. Later, the workers become aware that these extra men were being trained as strikebreakers. Due to wage slavery, every one of Jurgis’ family members are forced to work in the factories, including his pregnant wife, his stepmother’s young children and his dying father. Because the family can’t afford a doctor, Jurgis’ wife, newborn child and father all die. At the end of the novel, Jurgis is left a transient, wandering the streets without a family.

In addition to the protection labor unions afford American working families, unions play an integral role in defending our treasured Constitutional rights. The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution grants equal protection under the law to all citizens. Sadly, to this day, workers experience discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, gender, religious persuasion, pregnancy, age and other factors despite Constitutional protection. In 2006, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission division of the U.S. Department of Labor received 13,569 charges of age discrimination, 14,893 charges of disability discrimination, 4,901 charges of pregnancy-based discrimination, a whopping 27,238 charges of racial discrimination and an unbelievable 23, 364 charges of gender discrimination. In a striking example of the American workplace’s glass ceiling for women, the US Census Bureau reports that on average, women are paid 77 cents for every dollar made by men. Thankfully, labor unions have played an integral role in helping to fight this kind of discrimination in the workplace. The AFL-CIO helped draft and pass the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These two pieces of legislation combined to end discrimination both in and out of the workplace. Furthermore, unions continue to provide representation to workers who have fallen victim to discrimination in the workplace, ensuring that employers respect the equal rights guaranteed to all workers under our Constitution and other legal statutes. Union membership is important because it helps close the gap in wage discrimination. According to the AFL-CIO, union women earn 38% more than their non-union counterparts, African American union members earn 42% more than their non-union counterparts and Latino union members earn 52% more than their non-union counterparts.

Labor unions have also made possible the ability of workers to strike and bargain with employers. In the early days of union organization, workers strikes were vehemently suppressed, and workers didn’t have a means to end the unfair labor practices to which they fell victim. Employers constantly violated their employees’ Constitutional right to peaceably assemble when they blacklisted union members and striking workers. Without the union lobbyists who helped draft and pass the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, employers would still be partaking in the subversive and unlawful tactics that hindered workers’ ability to strike and bargain for fair working conditions in the past. My aunt is an employee of a southern California Safeway store. Three years ago, she actively participated in a one hundred day strike when Safeway tried to revoke employee healthcare benefits. As a result of the strike, Safeway was forced to bargain with the grocer’s union, and my aunt, a single mother of three, kept the benefits that provide for her entire family. Today, it is almost impossible to browse a newspaper without finding an article about American workers striking and bargaining for decent wages and benefits. But if my aunt and her fellow Safeway employees had conducted such a strike in the distant past, their names would have likely appeared on a blacklist rather than a healthcare roster.

We as Americans must realize that the fight for workers rights is not over, it is ongoing. Every time unions achieve victories for workers, new challenges arise in their place. If unions were to suddenly disappear, nothing would stop employers from slowly chipping away at all the ground workers have gained over the past century. Without the instrumental role of unions in the workplace, American workers would currently be experiencing grievous violations of their Constitutional rights. The salaries and benefits that sustain American family life are constantly under attack, and without unions, they would not be around for long. As famous columnist and political pundit Molly Ivins once said, “If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give money out of the goodness of their hearts.” Every American, union member or not, needs to recognize that their well being in the workplace depends on the continued support of labor unions.