The first week of April in California is Labor History Week. Signed into law as AB 1900 (Nakano) in 2002, its purpose is to encourage schools "to commemorate this week with appropriate educational exercises that make pupils aware of the role the labor movement has played in shaping California and the United States."

Unions work in many ways to advance the interests of working people, including collective bargaining, legislative advocacy, political action, and organizing. As a result of unions' activities on behalf of working people some of the most important pieces of national legislation were passed, including the National Labor Relations Act, Social Security Act, Unemployment Insurance Act, and Fair Labor Standards Act. Unions also worked to ensure passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Medicare Act, and establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).  Here in California, unions played a crucial role in the passage of important legislation such as the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the Fair Employment and Housing Acts, various laws extending collective bargaining rights to public employees, prevailing wage laws, wage and hour laws (including the 8-hour day and the right to meal and rest periods), the establishment of Cal-OSHA and many others.   These laws serve to protect all California workers, regardless of whether or not they are members of a union.

The Speaker's Commission on Labor Education is working closely with the legislature, the California Department of Education, the California State Library, and the labor movement to hold events, disseminate information and instructional materials appropriate to Labor History Week, and carry out the spirit of the law.

Past Labor History Week activities have included an exhibit in the rotunda in the State Capitol in Sacramento on California labor history produced by the Research Bureau of the state library. Another California labor history exhibit has been displayed at the Downtown UCLA Labor Center in Los Angeles.

In addition, students at numerous high schools have participated in Collective Bargaining Institutes, in which they formed union and management teams and engaged in mock negotiations to learn how to problem solve through collective bargaining in the workplace.

The California Labor History Map, a visual timeline with more than two hundred fifty events in the labor movement, was produced in 2004 by the State Library and the Speaker's Commission on Labor Education. You may order the map for $6.00 ($1.00 postage included) from the CDE Press by calling (800) 995-4099. You may also look at the Labor History Map Web site, which expands the map to more than one thousand events, http://calpedia.sfsu.edu/calabor/.  A simple Labor History Week exercise is to place the Labor History map on a wall in a public place, and provide viewers with a means to record their thoughts about it:  a simple pen and notebook can suffice.

A new pamphlet, Work, Money and Power: Unions in the 21st Century, was sponsored by the Commission, and is available from the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education to set the record straight on the continuing importance of unions.

Labor History Week offers an opportunity to give all students something precious: knowledge of where their rights came from, and how to preserve them today.