Labor History in the Schools -- Connecticut

It's about time! It's the history of working people!

Labor history is our history. It is the only movement that unites all people and fights for the rights of each individual. Most of the rights i enjoy were won by organized laborers taking a stand. And yet in our culture it is still a hidden history.

In light of recent events across out great country now more than ever we need to make sure our children, the children of the future know wahat contibutions Labor has given the middle class

#3: Rich Benham - Important education is needed now!  

 

The young people of this City need to know what Democracy means through the formation of Unions .Unions recognize the dignity of the people doing the work and protects them from unfair actions by the power structure. This enable families to live decently with a reasonably good standard of living.

Labor history is important to this and future generations, everyone needs to how how this country grew through the labor movement, how employees rights where fought for, safety in the work place and better working and living conditions.

It is important that sutdents learn about the history of labor practices. This will give them the tools to fight for fair labor practices by showing them how it was accomplished. Also they will know what to expect and demand when they enter the workforce.

its about time that the school system start teaching labor history in classrooms.

Excluding labor history in schools leaves a gap in our education.should we limit mathematics to grade school levels?

One of the two forces,the other being the G.I. of Rights, that helped create our Middle Claee which is melting away

Because I never studied labor history, I only recently learned about the pioneering work of Dr. Alice Hamilton to improve safety in the "dangerous trades." She lived at Hull House in Chicago (where she identified work-related diseases in her neighbors) and later at Harvard taught occupational medicine, the field she had founded. For decades she was a federal consultant on work-related health problems. After retiring in 1935, she moved to her summer home in Lyme, CT, where she wrote her autobiography. She died there in 1970 at the age of 101. The U.S. Postal Service honored her in 1995 with a postage stamp in its Great Americans Series for her work as a social reformer. We have her to thank for OSHA.

I hope that people are thinking of teaching not only labor history, as if it were a "dead" subject, but also that labor is alive, though not well.