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If you’re a US worker who has ever taken advantage of work-free weekends, lunch breaks, paid vacation, sick leave, social security benefits, minimum wage, overtime pay, or a 40-hour work week, you can thank the American labor movement. We often forget that Labor Day was designated as a federal holiday in order to celebrate the achievements of this movement, but fair and safe working conditions have not always been a given. They were hard-won by common people who fought and even lost their lives for the cause.

Labor Day was designated as a federal holiday in order to celebrate the achievements of the American labor movement, but fair and safe working conditions have not always been a given.

The images below show the parades, strikes, and tragedies that ultimately made way for improved working conditions in the US, yet by no means is the fight for fair labor laws over. Many minimum wage workers across the US require government assistance to keep their families afloat. A recent lawsuit against Uber has raised the issue of whether companies that run on the “gig economy” should be able to categorize their workers as “independent contractors” — a designation that passes the cost of health insurance, social security, and other expenses on to the worker. And if you thought child labor was a thing of the past here in America, think again: Many US child labor laws don’t apply to hundreds of thousands of children working in the agricultural industry in the US today.

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The above images depict just a few of the battles eventually won by labor movements nationwide. If you work in the US, you have likely taken advantage of a plethora of rights and laws fought for by the American labor movement, including:

• Work-free weekends

• Lunch breaks

• Paid vacation

• Sick leave

• Social Security

• Minimum wage

• Civil Rights Act/Title VII (prohibiting employer discrimination)

• Eight-hour work day

• Overtime pay

• Child labor laws

• Workers’ compensation

• Unemployment insurance

• Workplace safety

• Collective bargaining rights

• And more

Related front page panorama photo credit: Seamstress (Moses Soyer / Smithsonian American Art Museum), Mine Rescue (Fletcher Martin / Smithsonian American Art Museum), Artwork Days without End (Frank Cassara / Smithsonian American Art Museum)

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