Labor Day Is Not a Holiday. It’s a Battle Cry.

Last year, 5,283 American workers were killed on the job. They died in fields and factories, in construction zones and warehouses, on highways and hospital floors. When you add work-related illnesses—cancers, respiratory diseases, long-term exposures—the toll soars to over 140,000 lives lost. That’s more than the population of a mid-sized American city, wiped out in a single year by work itself.

At the same time, the lives of the living have been thrown into chaos. Since January, presidential executive orders have eliminated nearly 300,000 federal jobs. These weren’t abstract numbers on a spreadsheet; they were the livelihoods of men and women who kept the government running, who ensured safety, who delivered the services that hold communities together. Families have been torn apart, careers dismantled, and neighborhoods hollowed by the stroke of a pen.

And for millions who still have jobs, survival comes at a brutal price. The most recent data shows 8.2 million Americans—more than one in every twenty workers—are forced to work two or more jobs just to pay rent, put food on the table, and keep the lights on. Behind those numbers are mothers who never see their kids, fathers who collapse from exhaustion, and families stretched to the breaking point by a system that demands everything and gives back almost nothing.

These numbers should shock the conscience of a nation that prides itself on fairness and opportunity. Instead, too often they are ignored, treated as collateral damage in the relentless pursuit of profit and political power. When corporations cut corners on safety, workers die. When presidents wield executive orders as axes, workers pay the price. When wages stagnate and costs skyrocket, workers take on second and third jobs until there is nothing left of them but fatigue and desperation.

This is not a system for working people. This is a system against them.

And yet, the story of working people in America has never been just about tragedy. It has also been about resistance, solidarity, and victories won against impossible odds. From the fight for the eight-hour day to the struggle for civil rights on the job, every step forward has come because working people stood together, organized, and refused to accept the status quo.

That’s why Labor Day matters. It is not simply a three-day weekend, a time for sales and parades. It is a marker of the blood, sweat, and sacrifice of working people. It is a reminder that without organized labor, there is no middle class, no weekends, no safety standards, no protections for the vulnerable.

This Labor Day, we cannot afford complacency. The stakes are too high, the attacks too brazen, the costs too severe. If we want safer workplaces, if we want secure jobs, if we want a nation where one job is enough, then we must fight for it. We must defend and grow the American Labor Movement, because it remains the only force strong enough to stand between working families and the machinery of exploitation.

Labor Day is not a holiday. It is a battle cry.

Union Strong!