The Lowe-Down
by
Fred Lowe
Business Manager/
Secretary-Treasurer
A little over two years ago, as I prepared to face the dreaded reality
of my 50th birthday, insult was added to injury when I received an application
in the mail to join the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP)!
Membership in AARP has provided some interesting reading, however, including
a recent study on how retirees are faring. Unfortunately, it’s not
good news…
The Study found that there are currently 76 million Baby Boomers on the
cusp of retirement, while the percentage of employers offering health
coverage to early retirees (ages 55 to 64) has dropped from about 70%
in the 1980’s to 37% today! It is clear that the primary reason that
so many people die poor is the cost of health care - a retiree’s
single largest expense....
Social Security continues to be the mainstay of retirement security. It
has consistently provided retired Americans with 40% of their income over
the past several decades. Half of all Americans age 65 and over would
fall into poverty were it not for their Social Security benefits. The
percentages are much higher for women and minorities.
This is an issue the union—and management— must tackle so that
our members can look forward to a more secure retirement with benefits
that many in management working for the same public agency already receive......
UPEC/LIUNA Local 777
3440 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 835
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 380-6678
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How Working Families Won Labor Day
Peter J. McGuire, a young carpenter, stood before New York’s Central
Labor Union on May 12, 1882, to suggest an idea of setting aside one day
a year to honor labor. His idea was simple. The day should “be celebrated
by a street parade which would publicly show the strength and esprit de
corps of the trade and labor organization.”
The trade unionists, enthusiastic about the idea, quickly established
a committee to plan the event. The committee chose the first Monday in
September because, “it would come at the most pleasant season of
the year, nearly midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and
would fill a wide gap in the chronology of legal holidays.” McGuire,
known as the “Father of Labor Day,” was born into a poor family
on July 6, 1852 in a lower east side tenement in New York City. His working
career began at the age of 13. He held many different jobs and was quoted
as saying “I have been everything but a sword swallower.. . and sometimes
I was so hungry, a sword—with mustard, of course—would have
tasted fine.”
McGuire’s life became cemented within the labor movement on January
13, 1874, when he marched to Tompkins Square in New York to protest the
treatment of workers left jobless from the depression of 1873. Police
attacked the thousands of protestors and beat them to the ground. McGuire
was beaten along with his friend Samuel Gompers. From that date on, McGuire
and Gompers devoted their lives to organizing workers.
McGuire then helped organize the first national convention in Chicago
on November 15, 1881, which led to the formation of the Federation of
Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada. Five
years later with the help of Gompers, the organization became the American
Federation of Labor. Gompers became the president and McGuire the secretary.
On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers participated in the first Labor Day
parade in New York. The idea quickly caught on and by 1884, every major
city held a Labor Day parade.
McGuire along with other labor leaders then lobbied for a national holiday.
McGuire’s dream became a reality on June 28, 1894, when by an act
of Congress, Labor Day became a national holiday.
(Thanks from Sharon K. Williams and the New York Labor History Association)