Delegates to the 72nd Quadennial Convention voted to declare the week of Labor Day as Union Label Week. The observance is annual.

The delegates responded to a resolution calling for support of the Union label, shop card, store cards and sevice buttons that are "hallmarks of quality and symbols of fair labor standards."

Support Good Jobs - Buy Union

Union Label Week 2006 begins on Labor Day, Monday, September 4th and runs through Saturday, September 9th. The message this year: Support Good Jobs - Buy Union!

During Union Label Week we make a special effort to create a better understanding of how unions and union members contribute to America’s prosperity and security. Many of those contributions are obvious. America relies on union workers to

• Build our roads, offices, homes and schools and the materials that go into them.
• Operate our transportation systems on the ground, in the air and over the water.
• Deliver all vital services, from education to communications, from public safety to health services, from entertainment to public administration.

We do our part to make America work; all we ask in return is a fair
wage and job security, a work environment free of hazards, an opportunity to prepare for old age, health protection for ourselves and our family and a voice on the job. Millions of responsible employers - large and small - understand and accept this relationship that we call collective bargaining, recognizing that it adds value to their products and services and to the nation.

There is a third party in the collective bargaining relationship; our government, which we expect to act as an umpire balancing the power of concentrated wealth and employers with the rights of working families.

That’s how we believe the American way should work.

When that arrangement gets out of balance, as it appears to be now, we join our voices to fight to restore it.

Later this year: November 24th through December 4th, we will observe Buy Union Week to harness the purchasing power of union families in support of union-produced goods and services. The 10-day period following Thanksgiving officially opens the pre-Holiday season and is the most important week of the year for the retailing industry as consumers spend, on average, more than 60 percent of their annual shopping budget. We are hopeful that, by encouraging union families to look for union-made goods during Buy Union Week, we can demonstrate to skeptics that there is both a healthy demand for and a viable supply of high-quality consumer goods made by union workers.

Union Label Week and Buy Union Week provide us with opportunities to spotlight the American way and focus on the values that we hold and the pride we feel in our unions. Products and services that bear the union brand - union labels and union shop cards - symbolize that pride and those values. By demanding goods and services that carry the union label, we declare our support for a fair marketplace, responsible employers and communities that work the American way.

We’re counting on you to join us in this effort. Support Good Jobs - Buy Union!