Your turn: This Labor Day, let’s remember who really built the middle class
As we celebrate Labor Day, I’m thinking about hard-working families across central and northwestern Illinois who still feel left behind.
High costs and stagnant wages are still making it difficult for middle-class families to make ends meet. At the same time, big corporations are reporting record profits and the wealthiest one percent continues to get wealthier.
This weekend, let’s take a moment to recognize the ones who really built this country — the American worker. And the workers, coming together to bargain collectively, who built a strong middle class.
If we want to build the middle class back stronger than ever before and make sure our region can support families and jobs for future generations, we need to empower the American worker. And that means protecting their right to bargain collectively to improve their lives and the lives of their families.
We already know that when workers have the power to stand together and form a union, they get higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions. Studies show that on average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 10 percent more than their counterpart without one.
We also know that in central and northwestern Illinois, we need a pipeline of talented, well-trained workers to help improve our roads and bridges and provide stable drinking water infrastructure so every family can turn on their faucet and know it’s safe to drink.
In other words, the leaders of the infrastructure revolution will be union workers.
In America’s heartland, we know better than anyone that union members are the backbone of what keeps our economy moving forward, and are the key to building a stronger 17th Congressional District.
Despite the tremendous need to safeguard workers’ rights, there’s so much overdue work to be done to ensure fair wages and protections in the workplace.
I was proud to help re-introduce the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act this year with my colleagues in the House of Representatives. This legislation is the most significant update to workers’ rights in 80 years, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
The PRO Act empowers workers to join a union and holds employers accountable for violating workers’ rights by closing anti-labor loopholes and enacting meaningful penalties to combat union busting tactics.
As extreme state legislatures pass anti-worker “right to work” laws across the country, it has never been more critical to update federal workers’ rights laws and show our support for the American worker.
We owe so much to the American worker. And we owe so much to the workers who came together to bargain collectively and have their voice heard. It’s because of these trailblazers, exercising rights enshrined to them in this country, that we have the minimum wage, stable retirement, and, of course, the middle class.
As our country finds itself at a pivotal turning point with regard to how we choose to support families struggling to make ends meet, let’s remember who will help re-build the great American middle class stronger and better than ever.
Today, I'm thanking our workers and wishing a happy Labor Day to all those keeping our country and economy moving forward.
U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen represents Illinois’ 17th District in Congress, serving as a member of the House Agriculture Committee and Science, Space and Technology Committee.