Today is Labor Day. This year, it’s truly a day for workers to celebrate. And we have a lot to be excited about. We celebrate our union movement that is delivering results, with workers coming together and organizing to make our jobs better, across the country. We celebrate the progress working people have made through decades of advocacy to create better lives for ourselves and our families, ensure safer workplaces and build a stronger economy. It’s no wonder that unions are more popular today than at any time in more than 50 years! A record 71% of Americans now say they approve of unions. We are celebrating the Biden-Harris administration that puts working families front and center in everything it does. Look at the victories we’ve had just this year, from the bipartisan infrastructure law to the CHIPS Act to the Inflation Reduction Act to student loan forgiveness. These laws are investments that will change working families’ lives, by creating new jobs, making prescriptions more affordable and lifting the burden of debt. These are victories we achieved thanks to your activism, organizing and advocacy. Working people are recognizing the power we have when we join together to form unions. We are seeing every day the strength of workers coming together—from sheet metal workers in Alaska to REI workers in the Bay Area, from workers at the Milwaukee Art Museum to nurses in Coral Gables, Florida—and it is truly inspiring. But we can’t stop here. After we celebrate, our job is to take that momentum and use it to go all in on this election, so that we can protect our pro-worker majority and keep building on these victories. Because so much of the progress we’ve fought for—and so many of our most fundamental freedoms—is at risk. And so after we celebrate, we’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to fight to protect the freedom to organize—to fight back against unfair pay and unsafe workplaces. We’re going to fight to protect the freedom to access health care. And we’re going to fight to protect the freedom to vote. The stakes are high, but we can do it. Workers know better than anyone how powerful we are when we join together to make our voices heard. Today is Labor Day. Today, we recognize all of our hard work. And tomorrow, we’ll keep organizing, keep fighting and keep winning, because that’s what America’s workers do. In Solidarity, |
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Liz Shuler, President, AFL-CIO |