More Connecticut schoolchildren may soon learn in the classroom about how the U.S. came to have a 40-hour work week and workplace safety protections.
That’s because the state Senate this week passed “An Act Concerning the Inclusion of the Labor Movement and Free Market Capitalism in Public School Curriculum.” The 25 – 10 vote took place Wednesday. Now the bill heads to the state House of Representatives.
The bill directs the state Department of Education to draw up a curriculum on the subject and to make it available to local school boards for optional use.
New Haven’s two senators — Majority Leader Martin Looney and labor committee Co-Chair Gary Holder-Winfield — championed the bill.
In a video news release Wednesday (click above to watch it), Looney noted that the 40-hour work week, sick days, safety regulations, and employee health benefits came to be only “because of the advocacy of organized labor.”
“None of these things happened by accident,” Looney said. “In many cases they had to happen over the objection of substantial business and corporate interests.”