Three Undaunted Labor Figures

Unions remain critical in the fight for democracy and social justice

In the run-up to Labor Day, The Contrarian has featured guests and columns on the labor movement all week to underscore the critical role unions play in protecting workers and defending democracy. Even if you have never been a union member, you almost certainly have enjoyed the protection of workplace safety rules and benefits that labor unions fought for over decades (e.g., paid vacation, sick leave, overtime). But unions have also been key in battles for civil rights, environmental justice, and the social safety net.

As ALF-CIO President Liz Shuler said in her State of the Unions address this week:

Discrimination was the norm until the labor movement and civil rights movement came together, and fought for the Civil Rights Act and Fair Labor Standards Act. They told immigrants and women workers we had to choose between liberty and getting something to eat. Until in 1912, up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile workers said: “We refuse to make that choice.” And the Bread and Roses movement was born.

Just as they have done for over a century, unions again are standing up to powerful robber barons and corrupt government thugs. Unions have litigated dozens of cases against the Trump regime and conducted grassroots organizing nationwide. When ICE began targeting hardworking immigrants, “We trained an entire grassroots army of union activists, organizers, and members so we could exercise our constitutional rights, and fight for their release, and keep them here with their families, where they belong,” Shuler explained.

Three union figures’ legacies speak to the essential role that organized labor plays in nearly every issue that’s critical to Americans. Their biographies remind us that for decades union leaders and members have pushed back against threats, smears, violence, and public skepticism to struggle collectively for a more just society.

No one better personifies this tradition than A. Phillip Randolph, whose crusade for labor and civil rights began with his founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids in 1925. It took a decade to achieve recognition of the union and win a contract. “A small band of brothers—Black— had stood together and won against a corporation that had said it would never sit down and negotiate with porters.”

In that role he advocated for social justice in The MESSENGER (which he co-edited), threatened a “March on Washington” at the dawn of WWII to extract an executive order against discrimination in the defense industry, fought to desegregate the armed services and civil services after WWII, planned historic civil rights actions (e.g., 1958 and 1959 school integration marches), and helped lead the 1963 March on Washington. In short, Randolph advanced the interests of all Americans who had been denied the promise of equality.

---

Photograph by Harris & Ewing

In her time, social reformer Jane Addams demonstrated that union advocacy is essential to improve the lives of the workers, immigrants, and all vulnerable people. Her social work at Hull House—which she founded in 1889 to address the hardships caused by industrialization, discrimination, and poverty—by necessity included union organizing.

Addams helped organize a boycott in support of the 1894 Pullman strike and fought valiantly (albeit unsuccessfully) for a fair settlement. Refusing to relent, she supported the 1910 Garment Workers’ strike that delivered union recognition and its right to arbitrate. A prolific writer and speaker, she relentlessly championed workers’ rights throughout her life.

Moreover, Hull-House became an invaluable venue for labor organizing and other activities, as the Hull-House Museum website explains:

Jane Addams and the Hull-House residents provided kindergarten and day care facilities for the children of working mothers; an employment bureau; an art gallery; libraries; English and citizenship classes; and theater, music and art classes. As the complex expanded to include thirteen buildings, Hull-House supported more clubs and activities such as a Labor Museum, the Jane Club for single working girls, meeting places for trade union groups [where two were founded], and a wide array of cultural events. …

Among the projects that they helped launch were the Immigrants’ Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the nation, and a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic.

Through her efforts, Illinois enacted laws in 1893 to protect women and children. At the national level, she succeeded in creating the Federal Children's Bureau in 1912 and a federal child labor law in 1916. In her comprehensive struggle for workers, she guided a host of groups (including the Consumers League and the National Child Labor Committee), advocated for women’s suffrage, and rallied behind the founding of the NAACP and ACLU.

---

Decades later, Dolores Huerta began her public activism by founding the Stockton, California chapter of the Community Service Organization that “encouraged Spanish-speakers to participate in civic life,” mounted voter registration drives, supported bilingual political candidates, and lobbied for equal rights for Latinos. Continuing her fight for farm workers’ dignity and economic security, she later co-founded (with Cesar Chavez) the United Farm Workers Association. She then embarked on the UFW’s multi-year crusade for recognition and better working conditions, turning the 1965 grape boycott into a national movement.

Intertwined with labor organizing, Huerta advocated for the poor, women, the environment (e.g., campaigning against dangerous pesticides), LGBTQ Americans, and immigrants (which President Obama recognized when awarding her the Presidential Medal of Freedom). With hard-nosed lobbying, she achieved major legislative wins. Her foundation recalls how instrumental she was in passing Aid for Dependent Families (“AFDC”) and disability insurance for farm workers in California in 1963. She gained passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, “the first law of its kind in the United States, granting farm workers in California the right to collectively organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions.” Huerta’s work demonstrated that unions are ideally situated to understand and advocate a slew of issues impacting workers, their families, and their livelihoods.

Today, labor unions, in organizing grassroots efforts, applying pressure to the Trump regime and corporations, and mobilizing public opinion stand on the shoulders of Randolph, Addams, Huerta, and generations of union members. In the face of concentrated power and wealth, unions have remained undaunted in defense of working people and democratic principles. We honor and thank them.

You too can express your respect and gratitude for organized labor, by attending a Labor Day event near you this weekend.

Finally, a special shout out this week goes to Susan Monarez from the CDC and Fed governor Lisa Cook, for refusing to be bullied out of their jobs and instead taking the courageous step of going to court to defend our constitutional principles and intellectual rigor. They represent the very best among us.

Happy Labor Day weekend, Contrarians. Thank you for being with us! We’ll see you Monday night for our special coverage of the weekend.