Labor Day’s significance gets overlooked

Kansas City Star: Labor Day's significance gets overlooked

Months before September, Kansas City labor unions each year put out the call for entries in the annual Labor Day parade.

Union members always respond. Floats, front loaders and Fords travel for a few blocks in front of family and fellow union members. Today’s local festivities culminate with a picnic at the Liberty Memorial.

Most of the rest of the area’s population finds something else to do. Some go to the lake. Some shop. Some simply mow the lawn and crack open a beer.

For most, the Labor Day holiday simply doesn’t pack the emotional punch of the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving.

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By the 1950s, nearly half of all U.S. workers belonged to unions. From the late 1930s through the early 1970s, the labor movement was truly robust.

But in recent years, the power of labor has waned. According to federal statistics, only 12 percent of U.S. workers now are covered by collective bargaining agreements.

And if government employees aren’t included in the mix, the percentage of workers in the private work force who are union members plummets to 7 percent.