American employees have constructed our communities, laid the muse for our democracy, and powered the engine of our prosperity. From the manufacturing facility fingers who solid an Arsenal of Democracy and helped beat again fascism throughout World Warfare II, to the immigrants who assembled the transcontinental railroad that linked America’s coasts, to the well being care professionals and first responders who mobilized selflessly throughout the pandemic to avoid wasting numerous lives, American employees have guided us by way of our most troublesome moments and delivered a few of our Nation’s best triumphs.
Unions have been the voice of American employees, guiding their path to energy as a significant power in our society. Unions fought for increased wages and family-supporting advantages, established very important well being and security requirements, secured an 8-hour work day, eradicated youngster labor, guarded towards discrimination and harassment, and bargained for each employee’s justifiable share of financial prosperity. They offer employees a say in important selections affecting their lives and livelihoods and play a transformative function in shaping the way forward for our democracy. The center class constructed America, and unions constructed the center class. When organized labor wins, households win. All of us win.
I stated from the beginning that I’d be essentially the most pro-worker and pro-union President in American historical past, and I’m conserving that promise. Once I took workplace, I put cash within the pockets of hardworking People with the American Rescue Plan, providing households much-needed respiratory room. I’ve now enacted a daring, long-term financial agenda that can result in historic investments in our Nation and our employees: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Discount Act. My financial agenda is a once-in-a-generation blueprint to rebuild America, outcompete each different financial system on this planet, and create hundreds of good-paying and clean-manufacturing jobs. We’re placing plumbers, pipefitters, electrical employees, metal employees, and so many others to work on a spread of tasks — from rebuilding our infrastructure to manufacturing semiconductors, electrical automobiles, wind generators, and photo voltaic panels. Many of those jobs might be union jobs.
That is only the start. To present employees extra energy and lift wages, I signed an Government Order calling for a ban on unfair non-compete agreements that hinder individuals from constructing on their expertise to take new jobs of their industries. I created a White Home Process Drive on Employee Organizing and Empowerment with the purpose of figuring out new methods the chief department can facilitate the organizing of employees. I additionally appointed a former union president and card-carrying union member to serve this nation because the Secretary of Labor.
Nonetheless, there’s extra we will do. I consider each employee ought to have a free and truthful selection to arrange and discount collectively with their employer with out coercion or intimidation. That’s the reason I referred to as on the Congress to lastly go the Richard L. Trumka Defending the Proper to Arrange Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which is able to make it simpler for private-sector, State, and native authorities employees to hitch a union and discount collectively.
As our financial system recovers and rebuilds, we should construct it from the underside up and the center out — not the highest down — so everybody advantages. Our Nation continues to fall in need of its promise to ship equal alternative to employees of shade and ladies, amongst others, and we will do extra to make sure that good-paying jobs are accessible to everybody. Solely when all employees have a powerful voice of their wages, advantages, and job remedy can we begin to change how we worth their labor. Solely then can we start to reward work and never simply wealth.
I’ve had the respect of assembly employees of each stripe. I have visited longshore employees in California, firefighters in Colorado, transit employees in New Jersey, welders in Wisconsin, and academics in Virginia, amongst many others. I additionally welcomed frontline worker-organizers into the Oval Workplace. Every time I meet members of America’s labor group — devoted ladies and men who derive function from their work — I am reminded of one thing my father used to inform me: “A job is about greater than a paycheck — it’s about dignity and respect.”
This Labor Day, allow us to honor these trailblazers who’ve fought for the rights of working individuals. Allow us to stand in solidarity with all employees and strengthen their capacity to arrange and discount with employers. Allow us to give due to all of America’s employees who construct this Nation and pave our future.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the US of America, by advantage of the authority vested in me by the Structure and the legal guidelines of the US, do hereby proclaim September 5, 2022, as Labor Day. I name upon all public officers and folks of the US to watch this present day with applicable packages, ceremonies, and actions that honor the vitality and innovation of working People.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I’ve hereunto set my hand this
second day of September, within the 12 months of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the 2 hundred and forty-seventh.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
