Labor & Employment Law

Unique Philadelphia Monument Honors Workers

By Mike Hall

A new monument, the Labor Monument: Philadelphia?s Tribute to the American Worker, was unveiled in a ceremony earlier this month at the city?s Elmwood Park. Created by artist John Kindness, the monument?seven table-top sized ?work buttons? (see photo)?memorialize the contributions of  labor nationwide and Philadelphia?s working-class history.

The Fairmont Park Art Association, which commissioned the work, said Kindness, son of a shipyard worker,

searched for a symbol that could represent laborers from all industries and discovered old metal work buttons. Regardless of trade or skill, early generations of laborers often wore the same denim uniforms; hence the term ?blue-collar worker.? These uniforms were fastened with metal buttons, that bore a variety of slogans and symbols.

The result is a series of seven tables. The top of each table is a bronze relief sculpture that commemorates an important person or event in labor history. Located in the center of Elmwood Park, the Work Button Tables are arranged in a circle with benches along the perimeter. Blue paving and brick detailing around the benches allude to the denim and stitching on workers? clothing.

The seven tables feature:

• Eugene Debs, founder of the American Railway Union, the nation?s first industrial union and one the nation?s most renowned social activists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries;
• The fight to eliminate child labor;
• The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)?Wobblies?and Joe Hill;
• The alliance between labor movement and the women?s rights movement;
• The founding of the United Farm Workers (UFW) ;
• Labor and the civil rights movement; and
• The fight for workplace safety and health laws.

  Click here for more information on the Labor Monument.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 17, 2010 (boomark / email).