On this Labor Day, we lay claim to a holiday meant to recognize the sacrifice, struggle and sweat of working men and women who have built our nations. It is workers and their unions who are on the frontlines, carrying us through economic ups and downs, through wars, and through pandemics, and none have done so willingly as the strong, proud and united members of LIUNA across the U.S. and Canada.

This Labor Day finds a new day dawning in the United States, with the promise of a transformational investment that will finally repair our crumbling infrastructure and create good, LIUNA jobs. In both the United States and Canada, we are working to build a stronger middle-class, strengthen union rights, and looking forward to the eventual end of a pandemic that has destabilized and taken too many lives.

Yet still, all too often the hopes, dreams and aspirations of working people continue to be crushed by barbaric anti-union campaigns, by racism and bigotry, by inequality and by greed. As LIUNA members, we stand ready to fight, and we know that for all that ails our nations, there is no quicker nor more certain cure than a union card.

On this holiday, let us reclaim the true meaning of Labor Day and be inspired by the words of the militant union warrior and martyr Joe Hill, who so eloquently spoke of the power of workers united in solidarity, “If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.”

It is through our union's strength and resolve that our nations thrive. May every LIUNA member feel the power, be the power and use the power! On behalf of myself, General Secretary-Treasurer Armand E. Sabitoni and the entire LIUNA General Executive Board, I wish you and your family a safe, meaningful and well-deserved Labor Day.