As we prepare to celebrate (or come back from celebrating) our Labor Day weekend, please remember to thank the folks at Organized Labor.
Many people have mixed emotions about the organized labor movement and unions in general, but we mustn’t forget that it is because of organized labor that we have child labor laws and a 40 hour work week. Organized labor is the reason that we have a Labor Day celebration.
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, there was an economics professor there named Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Peace Prize at the same time I was attending the University of Chicago, and he wrote a paper documenting the fact that wage increases and benefits gained by organized labor had a neighborhood effect on companies where there was not a union. The effect of union wages raised non-union wages somewhere between 10 and 15 percent. The reality is, we have all benefitted from organized labor.
Over the last 30 years, we have seen business and corporate interests attack labor unions. Obviously, they don’t like the labor unions because in those instances where their workplace is organized, it costs them money. Of more importance, however, is even where the workplace is not organized, unions elsewhere cost them money by benefitting non-union employees.
Here at Moore & Jensen, we have always represented working people as opposed to businesses and corporations. Although we do not represent labor unions, we represent many of their members in their workers’ compensation cases.
We are wishing you and your families a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend.
