Local 99 Members, we stand on the shoulders of our brothers and sisters who have come before us in the fight for social and economic justice and equality. And while we stand, we owe it to them, ourselves, and our children, to continue building on the progress they have made.
Let us remind everyone of the ways we—the strong men and women of the labor movement—have improved the lives of millions of working Americans!
- Establishing and continuing to raise the minimum wage
- Weekends
- All breaks at work, including lunch breaks
- Paid vacation
- Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
- Sick leave
- Social security
- Civil Rights Act/Title VII (prohibits employer discrimination)
- Eight-hour work day
- Overtime pay
- Child labor laws
- Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
- 40-hour work week
- Worker’s comp
- Unemployment insurance
- Pensions
- Workplace safety standards and regulations
- Employer-based health care insurance
- Collective bargaining rights for employees
- Wrongful termination laws
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
- Whistleblower protection laws
- Employee Polygraph Protection Act (prohibits employer from using a lie detector test on an employee)
- Veteran’s Employment and Training Services (VETS)
- Compensation increases and evaluations (raises)
- Sexual harassment laws
- Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Holiday pay
- Employer-paid dental, life, and vision insurance
- Privacy rights
- Pregnancy and parental leave
- Military leave
- The right to strike
- Public education for children
- Equal Pay Acts of 1963 and 2011 (requires employers to pay men and women equally for the same amount of work)
- Laws ending sweatshops in the United States
Martin Luther King Jr. on the Labor Movement
“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.”
-Speech to the state convention of the Illinois AFL-CIO, Oct. 7, 1965
