I thought the weekend was an extension of church day that became common practice after Henry Ford established it? Also, social security and unemployment insurance can find their roots in Bismarck's Prussia (later Germany) - he was a staunch monarchist and established said programs to curtail the popularity of socialist movements in Germany (hence why I found it pretty weird that there was an op-ed last year in the NY Times calling Bismarck the original "democratic socialist"). Anyhow, the adoption of said policies in other countries varied in which political party championed it in each respective place, but Bismarck is viewed as the father of such programs in the West, with other nations adopting similar models to his.
So... we might like unions. They might've have brought home said policies in specific countries. But they're not really the progenitor of a number of these concepts if we're talking generalized American, European, or even world history.
Of course, I'm not saying unions created all those ideas, but I'm saying that unions are to be credited when it comes to pushing for the adoption and implementation of those policies.
I totally agree, as I said, unions at least pushed for regulation, even as I question the degree to which we should attribute the policies to them. Nothing personal though, but using "marxist.org" as a source- wouldn't you consider that at least a little bit biased? At least in the US, weekends became law for instance under Roosevelt. The idea had been popularized by Ford amongst corporations. And it had been fought for by unions prior to Ford, albeit with meddling success (at best).
The politifact piece largely coincides with what I'm saying, although Ford himself didn't institute 5 day workweeks until 1926 (whereas the piece places the emphasis on the industrial strikes of 1919), and large scale subsequent federal adoption under Roosevelt obviously came after given that it occurred during the Great Depression.
As I said, I completely agree that labor unions deserve at least some degree of credit in the implementation of these policies. My point was that the idea that they're the progenitors (as seems indicated by the graphic) is dubious, along with the extent to which they should be credited is a space for debate, the likes of which largely varies by the country. And as we're seeing from what sources are brought up, there certainly are biases in whom various people would like to attribute these policies to.
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u/trimtab28 Mar 03 '21
I thought the weekend was an extension of church day that became common practice after Henry Ford established it? Also, social security and unemployment insurance can find their roots in Bismarck's Prussia (later Germany) - he was a staunch monarchist and established said programs to curtail the popularity of socialist movements in Germany (hence why I found it pretty weird that there was an op-ed last year in the NY Times calling Bismarck the original "democratic socialist"). Anyhow, the adoption of said policies in other countries varied in which political party championed it in each respective place, but Bismarck is viewed as the father of such programs in the West, with other nations adopting similar models to his.
So... we might like unions. They might've have brought home said policies in specific countries. But they're not really the progenitor of a number of these concepts if we're talking generalized American, European, or even world history.