Labor Day is set aside to honor Americans who work. Too often, this holiday also turns into a day of nostalgia, a glance backward to the era in the last century when most working people in the United States felt confident that they could find jobs to support their families.
But a growing number of working people across all walks of life in our country are getting tired of Labor Days blurred with a sense of loss. We are not ready to concede that good jobs are relics of a bygone time. The story of how Americans joined together in unions to make jobs better is not a history to be mourned. It is a model to be studied to remind us how working people, no matter what our color or where we come from, can once again gain the power to change our lives for the better.
I am from Michigan. Growing up in my working class Irish Catholic community, everyone understood that life was made better because of unions.
