St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson is pictured speaking at the 2022 MN AFL-CIO Convention.
As American workers, our labor takes many forms. We create wealth, build communities and deliver the goods and services that grow our economy. We serve the public, care for the sick and create a safety net for the most vulnerable. We educate, advocate and strive for a better world. But no matter where we work, no matter who signs our paychecks, we all share the dignity that our work brings.
That’s what we, as Americans, celebrate on Labor Day – the struggles, values and shared interests that united previous generations in the fights for child-labor laws, health and safety standards and the eight-hour day. Throughout our history, the labor movement has had the vision to imagine a life for working people that didn’t exist yet. As union members, we stand on the shoulders of workers who found the collective will to make that vision a reality. On Labor Day we honor their sacrifices, and we renew our commitment to carrying on the fight for what all workers deserve: freedom, fairness and security.
That’s what our labor movement is fighting for every day, and we’re doing it in the face of unprecedented attacks from union-busters – and that includes the Trump administration. Union members know firsthand the value that comes with the freedom to form a union, to bargain a contract and to speak up with one powerful, unified voice. It’s a freedom that the American public overwhelmingly supports. It’s a freedom we can’t afford to take for granted. Right now, unions are fighting back in court to stop the president and his crony cabinet from stripping federal workers of their union contracts, and from seizing control of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent agency charged with upholding collective bargaining rights.
Our unions also lead the fight for fairness, for a just share of the wealth that workers create and for a square return on a hard day’s labor. Workers deserve an economy built on fairness, too, but the president and Republicans in Congress are taking our country in the opposite direction. The AFL-CIO’s annual “Executive Paywatch” report, released last month, found that the CEOs S&P 500 Index companies out-earned their workers by a 285-to-1 ratio, on average, last year. That means the median employee would have had to start working in the year 1740 to earn what the average CEO raked in last year alone. And the president’s signature tax and spending bill, which overwhelmingly benefits corporations and the wealthy, will only make inequality worse.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to weather rising health care costs, cuts to public services and the economic uncertainty resulting from the president’s tariffs. When we say American workers deserve security, we mean a country where children and families don’t have to struggle to afford food, housing and health care. We mean a nation where no one is targeted for who they are or where they were born, and where we can raise children and retire in dignity. That’s what our unions are fighting for.
Our movement faces attacks on multiple fronts right now, and that can feel overwhelming. No single march, protest or campaign will deliver the kind of change we know our country needs, the freedom, fairness and security that workers deserve. But every organizing drive, every strike, every time workers and their allies take action together is an act of radical hope. We bet on our solidarity and our collective power because we’ve seen it work before. Yes, the moment is tough, but toughness defines working people.
That’s what we celebrate on Labor Day.
– Kera Peterson is president of the Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, which brings together 140 local unions representing workers in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington and Chisago counties. Learn more about the federation and its work at stpaulunions.org.
Union Advocate 