Nearly 160 million workers were commemorated across the US on Monday as the annual Labor Day celebration unofficially marks the end of summer and gives families in some communities one last chance to reunite with friends and family the day before the start of the school year. Haven’t started.
Officially proclaimed in 1894, the national holiday honors American workers who often faced harsh conditions in the late 19th century – 12-hour days, 7 days a week, manual labor for very little wages. Now the holiday season is celebrated with backyard barbecues, a few parades and a day of rest.
While labor disputes over working conditions and wages are still common in the US, such as ongoing labor negotiations over the expiring contracts of 146,000 auto workers, many labor disputes have become anachronistic disputes, not just workers’ compensation.
After more than three years of working almost exclusively from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, some businesses are discussing with employees whether they should be required to return to work full-time or at least part-time. Other controversies have arisen over the new use of AI, how it affects job outcomes, and whether workers will lose their jobs as a result of the use of AI.
The union workforce in the US has been declining for many years, but still stands at over 14 million. Democrats rely on it for sustained political support in elections, even as some of the more conservative workers in some industrial cities have shifted to political allegiance to the Republican Party, although their union leaders still support mostly Democratic politicians.
Democratic President Joe Biden, who often describes himself as the most labor union president in US history, traveled to the eastern city of Philadelphia on Monday for the annual tri-state Labor Day parade. He spoke about the importance of unions in US labor history and how the US economy, the world’s largest economy, is recovering from the initial devastating effects of the pandemic.
“This Labor Day, we celebrate work, high-paying jobs, work that supports families, the work of unions,” Biden told the crowd.
National polls show that Biden, who is running for re-election in 2024, is struggling to win voters’ confidence in his approach to the economy. He adopted the phrase “bidenomics”, which critics intended to refer to as his presidency and use as a campaign homage.
During Biden’s 2.5 years in office, more than 13 million new jobs were created in the economy – more than any other presidency during the same period, although some of these jobs were replacement jobs to fill vacancies lost due to pandemics.
“As we head into Labor Day, we need to take a step back and address the fact that America is now experiencing one of the strongest job creation periods in history,” Biden said Friday.
The US Department of Labor said on Friday that employers added 187,000 jobs in August, down from previous months but still not bad amid continued US central bank rate hikes.
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 3.8% from 3.5%, the highest level since February 2022 but still near a five-year low. Economists, however, said there was an encouraging reason for the rising unemployment rate: another 736,000 people started looking for work in August, suggesting they thought they could find work if they weren’t hired immediately.
The Labor Department considers only those who are actively looking for work to be unemployed, so the unemployment rate is higher.
Biden used the announcement to promote the unions, applauding Amazon’s unionization efforts and allowing federal funds to help union members with their pensions. Last week, the Biden administration proposed a new rule that would increase overtime pay for American workers by another 3.6 million, the most generous increase in decades.
On the campaign trail, Biden praised union workers for helping build bridges and repair crumbling infrastructure as part of a bipartisan, $1.1 trillion public works plan passed by Congress in 2021.
“Unions have raised the bar for the workforce and industry, raised wages and increased benefits for everyone,” Biden said Friday. “You’ve heard me say this many times: Wall Street didn’t build America. The middle class built America, the unions.” . built a middle class.
Post time: Sep-06-2023