Just as Memorial Day marks the symbolic beginning of the summer for the overwhelming majority of Americans, few think of Labor Day as anything more than one last three-day weekend before autumn arrives.
For labor unions, however, the occasion presents an opportunity to lie about their accomplishments and pretend the holiday was created in their honor.
It wasn’t, nor should it have been.
According to the federal Department of Labor’s own website, the holiday is “… dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.”
There’s a reason why the private sector has a union membership rate of about 6.2 percent — and shrinking. When given a choice in the matter, workers recognize that, while unions might have performed a necessary service at the turn of the last century, the responsibility for things like enforcing child labor laws, keeping jobsites safe and investigating workplace disputes has largely been assumed over the years by a panoply of regulating agencies at every level of government.
Unions today exist primarily to fund leftist candidates and causes with someone else’s money, and workers in the private sector are no longer tolerating it. The membership rate among government employees remains somewhat more robust because, until relatively recently, union participation was a requirement in many states to work in the public sector.
That all changed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which affirmed the rights of government employees to opt out of union membership, dues and fees. Since then, the Freedom Foundation has helped 100,000 public-sector workers opt out, and is currently litigating 70 lawsuits against unions that don’t comply with resignation requests.
The successful outreach program that began in Washington state has traveled across the country, and just this week, the first Freedom Foundation canvassing team hit neighborhoods in Connecticut.
Earlier this year, the Freedom Foundation announced plans to expand into every state in the country to bring its message of freedom to public sector employees who have no idea about their rights regarding union membership and dues deductions.
We’ve worked with a number of home care providers, like Bonita Entwistle in Washington.
We even have a lawsuit on behalf of Washington homecare providers that will be considered by the Supreme Court later this month.
A number of teachers have come to the Freedom Foundation for help in freeing themselves from the bully that is their teachers’ union.
One of our friends, Maryland school bus driver Roland Roy, has made it his mission to spread the word to everyone he works with.
Sometimes, we even help people form new unions that actually provide the benefits their members wanted and weren’t receiving from larger, national unions, like this gentleman in New Jersey.
We know we’re effective because we really get under the skin of union officials like Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), who even took the time to record a video attacking our outreach efforts.
On this Labor Day, assuming you feel the need to invest the occasion with meaning at all, take a moment to appreciate the blessings of being a free American working to improve your own lot in life with the expectation of keeping the fruits of your labors. Most of them, anyway.
And while you’re at it, redouble your efforts to fight the union leaders still determined to take it all away from you.
