A Labor Day Message from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO

09/04/2011

A Labor Day Message from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO

The following is a Labor Day message from Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO:

Labor Day is a time to recognize and celebrate the hardworking men and women who make our country great.

While we honor working men and women everywhere, we pay tribute to the union movement. The labor movement not only brought us the weekend, child labor protections and a safe work environment, but unions provide a necessary check on unbridled corporate greed and the power of corporate executives.

A check on corporate power is needed as the wealthiest 1% of the nation consolidates our country's wealth. Income inequality in America is growing at an alarming rate, especially for African-American and Hispanic households.

It's clear that our politicians are putting corporate profits above people. Wisconsin recently passed a budget that not only calls for devastating cuts to education and health care but raises taxes on the working poor while giving millions in tax giveaways to corporations.

This is not the way forward.

To move forward, we need to invest in us, Wisconsinites, as workers with education, training and infrastructure. We need to restore not only shared sacrifice but also shared prosperity. Let's close the unpatriotic tax loopholes for corporations and the super-rich so that everyone pays his or her fair share to fix the deficit.

To recover from economic distress our state needs not only more jobs, but good jobs, with living wages, workplace rights and freedom to organize labor unions.

We need to continue to take to the streets. Forty-eight years ago last week, a quarter of a million people took to the streets of Washington D.C., for the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice.

This year, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites took to the streets for the same issues - family-supporting jobs, economic justice, a dignified work environment, the right to collectively bargain with your employer and a fair economy.

When we saw voter suppression laws, undemocratic redistricting maps, attacks on unions and an unpatriotic budget, the people of Wisconsin came together in an unprecedented show of solidarity.

We took to the streets, to the courts and to the ballot box to protect the middle class. While we may not have won every battle, we sent a strong message to Madison and to Washington: Attacks on democracy will not go unanswered.

On Labor Day, we celebrate all that we have accomplished and look ahead to the fight for fairness and economic equality.

This Labor Day we continue the movement that has been re-energized and reawakened and commit to fight for the rights of all workers, locally and globally.

This fight is for you.