3 results for author: John Spiegelhoff and Dale Moerke

FINALLY…A BREAK FOR WORKING PEOPLE

Near the turn of the century and into the 1930’s, in order to feed your family and put a roof over your head, workers had to endure six day workweeks, twelve hour work days and marginal time with their families. After decades of mistreatment, workers had enough. They formed unions and asserted their rights and dignity in the workplace. But the struggle for fairness and equality in the workplace did not end there and also continues to this day. In 1938 labor unions were instrumental in getting Congress to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act which introduced the forty-hour work week, established a national minimum wage and guaranteed most workers ...

UNIONS ARE LIKE FAMILIES

When one mentions the word family, the first thing that comes to a person’s mind is the group of people you grew up with-father, mother, siblings and perhaps your grandmother or grandfather. Perhaps your definition of family is your immediate family-yourself, your spouse/significant other and your children. But stop and think about it. We have many more families in our daily lives than what immediately comes to mind. We also have our work family, our church family and our community family just to name a few. Human beings do not live in isolation. We are very social and interact with one another in many different areas of our lives. In the annals ...

WITH UNIONS, EVERYONE BENEFITS

WITH UNIONS, EVERYONE BENEFITS The concept of Unions, workers banding together to improve their wages, hours and working conditions, has been the great equalizer for workers in the United States for over one hundred years. Only since 1971 have the public sector workers in Minnesota had the right to bargain collectively with their employers. A group interested in forming a Union goes through an election in the workplace. If a simple majority of eligible voters decide that they want a union, then everyone must be represented equally. Workers can choose not to be a member of their union but they are still represented by the union. In 1977, ...