|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
On this Labor Day, the need to recognize and support unions is more urgent than ever. The American middle class has long relied on the power of organized labor to secure fair wages, safe working conditions, and a pathway to the American dream. This truth is personal for me. When my dad arrived in this country he became a farm worker, cutting sugarcane and picking tomatoes in the Everglades, determined to build a better life. It was joining the carpenter’s union that changed his path from hard, seasonal field work to becoming a skilled laborer and then a professional carpenter.
Because of the carpenter’s union, my parents were able to buy a small single-family home in Hialeah. Our family also had health insurance for the first time. Those are things many today may take for granted, but for us, they were hard-won victories made possible because workers band together to demand a fair shot. Equally important are the protections like child labor laws that keep our children safe and allow them to focus on their education, not backbreaking work. Unfortunately, recent changes in Florida have weakened these laws, allowing younger teens to work longer hours and under conditions that threaten their health and schooling. We must resist efforts to erode these protections because they are vital to ensuring future generations have a chance to thrive.
Unions have been essential to achieving the American Dream. Fighting for every worker’s right to dignity, safety, and respect on the job. The hard-won benefits like healthcare, paid leave, weekends, and a secure retirement are the result of generations of workers standing together for better lives. But today, that progress is under attack as the Trump administration aggressively tries to undermine workers contracts and public institutions that protect working families and children. Attacks on public education are not just attacks on schools, they are attacks on our children’s ability to get a high-quality education, which directly affects their access to better jobs and a stronger economy.
We must recognize the dangerous playbook of fascism: banning books, attacking education, limiting opportunities, eroding workers’ rights, and dividing communities through culture wars. This is a threat to the very fabric of our society and democracy. Attacking workers and their unions isn’t just politics, it’s a direct assault on the dream that families like mine fought so hard to achieve.
Every fair contract, wage increase, and job protection was won through solidarity. With corporate greed and anti-worker politics turning back the clock, it is up to all of us to stand together by supporting unions, speaking out for worker rights, defending child labor laws, protecting public education, and joining a union to secure the future for our families and for generations to come.
This Labor Day, let’s remember the power of unity in America’s history and recommit to fighting for a country where every worker can pursue a dignified, secure life. Our ability to build a prosperous and just society depends on what we do collectively, and it’s time for every middle-class worker to step up, stand together, and protect the American dream for all.
