September 1 is Labor Day—a time to honor America’s labor movement and the workers whose fights built the foundation of our democracy. Weekends, 40-hour work weeks, child labor laws, workplace safety, equal pay, and so much more exist because unions stood for working people, a dedication that sometimes came at the ultimate cost of their lives.
This Labor Day, we want to take a moment to reflect on why unions matter to our democracy and the many rights we enjoy today because workers organized, resisted, and refused to back down.
The story of national unions begins in 1866, when William Sylvis founded the National Labor Union (NLU). At the time, there were about 200,000 workers in local unions across the U.S., and the organization saw the opportunity to take the labor fight beyond higher wages and shorter working hours, and into the political arena. The NLU brought together both skilled and unskilled workers but stopped short of admitting African-American members. The union took a big hit during the Panic of 1873, which led to widespread unemployment, and the NLU was ultimately dissolved. But the idea that workers could wield collective power to push for change did not disappear.
In 1869, the Knights of Labor emerged as a secret society, admitting all workers in their ranks, including women and African Americans. They recognized that complete solidarity was necessary to influence the federal government, and at the height of its membership in 1886, the group had 750,000 members and advocated for restrictions on child labor, government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones.
Tragedy struck again that same year, however. On May 1, 1886, more than 30,000 workers walked off their jobs, marching peacefully in the streets to push for an 8-hour workday for all workers, draw public attention to the cause, and convince others to join the fight. But violence broke out, killing at least two people. The next evening, laborers rallied at Haymarket Square to protest police brutality, but what began as a small, peaceful rally turned deadly when police stormed the crowd and a bomb was thrown, sparking a chaotic shootout that killed at least seven police officers and four workers.
The fallout of the incident destroyed the Knights of Labor but sparked worldwide outrage. Out of those ashes arose the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and May Day—celebrated around the globe as International Workers’ Day, though U.S. politicians sought to erase May Day’s labor movement origins in favor of the “less radical” Labor Day in September we know and celebrate today.
Despite repeated attempts to suppress and destroy them, unions grew stronger, workers boldly striked, and continued the fight against unjust working conditions, and the AFL emerged as a major strike force. Little by little, victories such as the Keating-Owen Act, which restricted the number of hours children could work and outlawed the sale of merchandise produced by child labor before being struck down by the Supreme Court; the Norris-LaGuardia Act,which banned “yellow-dog contracts,” that forced workers to pledge to not join a union as a condition of employment; and the creation of the Department of Labor in 1913 all helped develop the landscape we know today. This era also saw the rise of new unions like the Women’s Trade Union League, founded at an AFL convention, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black labor union in the United States.
Between 1880 and 1930, most union members were skilled craft workers, many of them affiliated with the AFL. But it was the Great Depression of the 1930s that ignited widespread discontent among industrial workers. In response to the hardships created by the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration passed the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, landmark New Deal legislation that not only established maximum hours and minimum wages but also guaranteed the rights of private-sector workers to unionize, engage in collective bargaining, and strike. Ultimately, this act laid the groundwork for the organizing of mass production industries and created the foundation for modern American labor law.
Though the National Industrial Recovery Act was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later, it set the stage for the Wagner National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)—which guaranteed workers’ rights to unionize—to replace it. That same year, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was founded, and by the end of World War II, more than 12 million workers belonged to unions, and collective bargaining had become a cornerstone of the industrial economy.
The labor movement’s crowning victory came in 1938 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). For the first time, federal law guaranteed a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, a 40-hour workweek, and overtime pay. It also barred minors under 18 from dangerous work and prevented children under 16 from working in any job during school hours. Shortly after, the Fair Employment Practice Commission (FEPC) was created to prevent employment discrimination based on race, national origin, color, or creed in government-funded industries.
In the years that followed, unions broadened their battle to fight for equality for all on the front lines of the Women’s and Civil rights movements, as well as the rights of farmworkers. Ultimately, unions helped lay the groundwork for the passage of the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, banning pay disparity for equal work based on gender and banning workplace discrimination based on race, gender, religion, color, or national origin.
In 1970, the fight for worker safety hit a milestone when President Richard Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). After decades of deadly factory fires, mine collapses, and farming accidents, American workers finally won federal protections for their safety, health, and well-being, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created to uphold the requirements of employers to protect their workers from toxic substances, mechanical dangers, unsanitary conditions, excessive heat and cold, and other known physical hazards.
While the Fair Labor Standards Act was a landmark victory, it did not extend protections to every worker.
Farmworkers and agricultural laborers were among those excluded, left without federally recognized rights to collectively bargain through their unions. But it didn’t silence their voices in the 1930s and 1940s as they staged strikes and protests to demand fair wages and humane conditions, planting the seeds of a movement that would grow stronger in the decades to come. By the 1960s, the landscape of farmworker organizing shifted dramatically, as a push for social change for people of color gained momentum. The farmworkers’ movement flourished, and out of it came the United Farm Workers (UFW) union and the strike that gave their name national prominence: the Delano Grape Strike. This lasted for five years, forcing California growers to pay higher wages and offer better working conditions to farm workers. The pressure came to a head in 1975 with the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which granted California farmworkers the right to collective bargaining. Yet to this day, farmworkers still lack federal protections, with only a handful of states guaranteeing their right to bargain collectively.
In Florida, educators were facing their own battles. Throughout the 1960s, educators in Florida were fed up with low salaries, underfunded public schools, and attacks on their unions. In 1968, tensions boiled over when the Florida Legislature passed anti-strike laws and amended the constitution to strip public employees’ right to strike. In response, 35,000 teachers made history by staging the first statewide teacher walkout in the U.S. As many as 35,000 teachers walked out of their classrooms during the two-and-a-half-week strike to demand higher pay and improved school budgets, shutting down a third of Florida’s school districts. Through this bold action, educators won a resolution that required county school boards to “professionally negotiate” with educators. This set the stage for all of Florida’s public workers to win collective bargaining rights with the passing of the Public Employee Relations Act (PERA) in 1974, though the act preserved the ban on striking.
Decades later, the rights of workers continued to expand with the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, which requires reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities, and the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993, which gave workers the right to take off 12 job-protected workweeks in a year for major life events like the birth or adoption of a child or to care for an ill family member.
Almost every right workers in America have today can be traced back to the labor movement. And while so much progress has been made, the work is far from over.
Today, too many workers struggle to put food on the table, provide for their families, and retire with dignity on a single income. Even worse, child labor protections in Florida are under attack, politicians continue to target unions, and maternity and paternity leave still aren’t codified into U.S. law. It’s clear the fight for workers’ rights is not finished—but if history has taught us anything, it’s that progress comes when workers stand together.
Through unions, we’ve transformed workplaces, won dignity, and reshaped our democracy. By the power of our collective voice, we will continue pushing toward a future where every educator, education staff professional, nurse, postal worker, transit employee, and every worker who keeps our communities running can live the American Dream.
At the core of our work as educators and unionists is a simple truth: we do this for our students and for the future we all deserve. Labor Day should serve as a reminder of how far we’ve come—and why we must never stop moving forward.
This year, we hope you find a Labor Day event in your community to attend. Florida’s AFL-CIO has events around the state that you can participate in. If you do attend, we encourage you to take pictures and tag us @FloridaEA on X, Instagram, or Facebook, and @floridaea.bsky.social on Bluesky.
The Florida Education Association is the state’s largest association of professional employees, with more than 120,000 members. We are affiliated nationally with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA) and the national AFL-CIO.
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