50 Years Ago, JFK Opened Door for Federal Employees to Join Unions
Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order opening the door for 2 million federal employees to join unions. His action set the stage for expanding these rights under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter—a bipartisan recognition that federal employees should have a voice on the job.
Executive Order 10988 “might be the least known of the string of significant events that made the 1960s such crucial years in American history,” writes Georgetown University history professor Joseph McCartin—but it contributed to a wave of public-sector unionization that grew tenfold between 1955 and 1975, topping 4 million by the early 1970s.
It’s fitting that on this key anniversary, when we acknowledge the decades-long efforts of public employees to work for passage of laws such as EO 10988, that public employees and workers across Wisconsin have today sent a strong signal that they will never give up the struggle for their rights to bargain collecitvely for a middle-class life.
Read McCartin’s full op-ed here.
Union Movement Mourns Jack Henning
 |
||||
|
||||
The union movement is mourning the loss of longtime California labor leader Jack Henning, who died yesterday at age 93. Henning served as executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation for 26 years before his retirement in 1996.
Henning’s leadership produced some of the great milestones in California labor history. Almost immediately after his election to the top office of the state federation, he joined the struggles of the United Farm Workers, campaigning successfully for passage of the historic Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.
Henning also led the campaign to restore Cal-OSHA in 1988, a year after it was abolished by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, and he spearheaded a successful drive to reform the state’s workers’ compensation system.
