Catherwood LibraryILR School

Labor Day in the 21st century seems to be more about cookouts and a last celebration of summer than about the people who fought and gave their lives for workplace conditions currently taken for granted. Forbes' review of current labor conditions finds a number of troubling news items. Employees still feel uncomfortable about asserting their rights at work and asking for flexibility. Pay inequality gains are increasing very slowly for women; in 2008 they earned 79.3% of a man’s income; in 2017 it was 82.9%. The standard justification for paying women lower wages is that men often are employed in riskier work which requires a premium; yet, out of the top ten most dangerous jobs in the world, only a few positions are adequately compensated, with lows of $30,740 for fishing workers, $34,790 for truck drivers and $38,210 for loggers – with an average of $49,630 across all occupations. Meanwhile, black and Latino workers continue to make less than white employees by a greater margin than in 1979. The Obama administration's attempt to raise the threshold for overtime exempt workers was later denied by a court, sinking the attempt to pay exempt employees overtime for their work. The federal minimum wage has not grown as quickly as living costs, such as healthcare, and the poverty limit for an individual - $12,060 - is quite close to a full-time minimum wage worker's income of $15,080. While 29 states offer a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum, cities like St. Louis and Kansas City which raised their minimum wage found themselves denied three months later by state politicians who lowered the minimum wage again. Overall, income inequality has risen while wages have remained stagnant. Lastly, Ronald Reagan, famously known for firing 11,000 air traffic controllers on strike, was inducted into the Labor Department’s Labor Hall of Honor.