A Message from Vice President and Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager Dennis L. Martire on Labor Day 

It’s that time of year when political candidates will broadcast that they’re on the side of working people, but this is a promising time for the union movement because of action. 

As a result of action, there is so much to celebrate this Labor Day. The Biden-Harris Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is creating tens of thousands of good union construction jobs. In LIUNA’s Mid-Atlantic Region alone, approximately 40,000 men and women have joined our union. The Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has transformed low-wage, dead-end jobs building renewable energy resources into good, union jobs. Manufacturing is coming back. Workers are organizing new unions across the region and our country. Not only are unions popular, workers are winning more elections than in decades, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

Again, this is real action that is helping the working class stand together. It was the Biden-Harris Administration passing bipartisan legislation when it could and going alone to pass it when necessary. It was their strongly held beliefs that workers, not Wall Street, build America — and that unions build the middle class. Yet, millions of working people still struggle with low-wages, scarce benefits, and the prospects of an insecure retirement — all while corporate profits soar. Millions of American workers say they want a union to improve their lives, but they are crushed by corporate outlaws when they try to join one.

Let’s enjoy a well-earned Labor Day. Let’s salute the generations of workers who came before us and sacrificed — with their livelihoods, and sometimes, with their lives — to win basic dignity and respect on the job. And then, let’s get to work. Let’s march to a million-member strong LIUNA. Let’s continue to build Laborers Rising into a powerhouse for justice. Let’s fight to make a Laborers Bill of Rights the law of our land. Let’s defend our Davis-Bacon prevailing wages, let’s fight for ever more union-jobs-creating investment and let us finally pass legislation like the PRO Act, so that every construction worker, every public service worker, everyone who labors so America works can freely choose to join a union.

It starts at the top. We roll up our sleeves on and off the job, and we must roll up our sleeves now to send Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House. These two warriors for the working class and middle class will stand beside us as we march forward. To victory and to a Happy Labor Day.