Independence Is Something We Build
Every July, we celebrate American independence. We fly the flag, gather with family, and remember the people who declared that this country should be free from the rule of a distant king.
But independence was not won because a few men wrote down a set of ideas. It was won because people organized around those ideas. People took risks and decided they would no longer accept a system where power belonged to someone else.
We should also remember that the country was deeply divided at its inception. Neighbors disagreed. Families were split. Some people wanted independence, while others thought the fight was too dangerous, or too disruptive, or simply impossible to win.
Powerful interests had a lot invested in maintaining the status quo, too. That should sound familiar.
Now, as we hurtle toward another important election in a country that feels increasingly divided, political threats and violence have become too common. Trust in our institutions is low. Political operatives from coast to coast make a living by keeping us afraid of one another. Corporate interests spend millions trying to shape our choices before working people ever get a say.
In my experience, working people are often asked to carry democracy on our backs while other people make the big decisions.
They want our endorsements. They want our members to walk precincts, make calls, attend rallies, and put their credibility on the line. They want union money. Then, after the election, too many of them suddenly have a room full of consultants, donors, and special interests telling them why the campaign promises they made to workers have to wait.
That’s not political independence for labor. That’s workers being used.
Labor must not be a pawn on someone else’s political chessboard. We have our own values, our own institutions, and our own democratic processes. Our members debate issues. We vote. We make endorsements. We hold leaders accountable. That should count for something.
No political party owns the labor movement. No elected official is entitled to our support. No consultant should be able to take working people for granted. Our support should be earned.
Political independence doesn’t mean we stop building coalitions or working with people we agree with. It means we enter those relationships with our eyes open and with the strength to speak for ourselves. It means we don’t allow our priorities to be diluted before we even get to the table. The same is true of economic freedom.
We talk a lot in this country about freedom, but freedom involves more than casting a ballot every two years. A person isn’t truly free if one illness can wipe out everything they’ve worked for. A worker isn’t free if they’re afraid to speak up about an unsafe condition because they might lose their job. A family isn’t free if every paycheck disappears into rent, groceries, and bills before the next one arrives.
Economic freedom is about having some control over your own life, and that’s what a union contract provides. It provides wages you can count on, healthcare for your family, and a pension that allows you to retire with dignity. It provides safety rules that can’t be ignored because somebody wants to save a few dollars. It provides a grievance process that gives a worker a voice when the employer gets it wrong.
In the building trades, economic freedom also means a path into the middle class that doesn’t require taking on a lifetime of debt.
I’ve seen what an apprenticeship can do for a young person who needs an opportunity. You learn a trade. You earn while you learn. You work alongside skilled journey-level workers who teach you how to do the job safely and correctly. You build not just a resume, but a career.That education matters.
George Washington is an important part of our country’s history, and his story is worth understanding in full. He was central to the fight for independence and to the formation of the country. He was surrounded by highly educated and prosperous men, many of whom had the kind of formal schooling and social standing that opened doors in their time.
Washington did not attend college. Much of his education came through his experience as a surveyor, a soldier, and a leader responsible for people in difficult conditions. His education came from the field. As a labor leader, I respect that.
Working people know that knowledge doesn’t come only from a classroom. It comes from the jobsite, the union hall, the picket line, and the responsibility of looking out for the person working beside you. It comes from making mistakes, solving problems, and understanding that other people are depending on you to get it right.
“Freedom isn’t something that’s passed down to us and placed on a shelf. It has to be defended, rebuilt, and expanded by every generation.”
Despite his scrappy ingenuity, Washington’s history is also complicated. He helped lead a revolution for freedom while owning enslaved people. That contradiction cannot be erased from his legacy.
The same is true of our country. The founders declared that all people are created equal while denying equality and freedom to millions. Native people were killed and displaced. Women were denied political rights. Democracy was limited from the beginning.
The history of the labor movement is complicated, too.
Our unions have fought for dignity, safety, fair wages and a voice on the job. Workers organized, struck, marched, and sometimes died for conditions of working life that people now treat as ordinary. The eight-hour day was not handed to us. Prevailing wages were not handed to us. Healthcare, pensions, and safe jobsites were not handed to us.
But there were also unions that excluded workers on the basis of race, gender, or immigration status. There were times when working people failed to stand together. There were moments when our movement did not live up to its own values of solidarity and equality.
We should not hide from any of that history.
George Washington’s history is complicated. The history of the labor movement is complicated. The history of our country is complicated. Each has failed, at times, to live up to the ideals on which it was founded. Yet those ideals are still worth fighting for.
Freedom, equality, democracy, solidarity, and dignity on the job are not empty words because earlier generations failed to fully honor them. They are promises that each generation inherits and has a duty to make real.
The answer to an imperfect history is not to abandon the promise. It is to organize until the promise is kept.
On a jobsite, we don’t strengthen a building by pretending there are no cracks. We inspect them. We figure out what caused them. We repair what’s weak, and then we keep building.
That’s what patriotism should be about — not pretending our country has always been perfect, but being willing to do the hard work of bringing it closer to its lofty promises.
That’s also what unionism should be about.
We must organize our members, our workplaces, and our communities to demand that America live up to its values. Political freedom must include a real voice for working people. Economic freedom means nothing without fair wages, healthcare, retirement security, safe jobs, and the right to form a union.
We have to keep expanding opportunity. We have to bring more young people, women, immigrants, and workers from every neighborhood into our trades. We have to defend standards while opening doors. We have to make sure the prosperity created by development and public investment reaches the people who actually build our city.
This election season, plenty of people will be out trying to divide us. They’ll spend millions of dollars telling working people who to fear and who to blame. They’ll try to convince us that our neighbor is the problem while corporations, wealthy donors, and political insiders keep reaping the benefits of our disunity.
We should reject that.
The labor movement is strongest when we remember who we are, and who we are not. We aren’t just another interest group. We’re working people organized around the belief that democracy should exist on the job and in public life.
The trades have a special role to play. We know what it means to build something lasting. We know that no one trade completes a project alone. We know that solidarity is more than a slogan — it’s how we get home safe, protect our standards, and create opportunity for the next generation.
I believe we can usher in a new era of political independence for the labor movement and economic prosperity for working-class people, but it won’t be easy. We’ll have to go up against entrenched political operatives, corporate interests, and wealthy donors who are very comfortable with the system as it is.
Working people have overcome powerful interests before, though. We do it by standing together.
Beyond this month, let’s celebrate independence by remembering that freedom isn’t something that’s passed down to us and placed on a shelf. It has to be defended, rebuilt, and expanded by every generation.
Let’s also know our history — all of it, the good and the bad. Let’s honor the founders of our country, the founders of the labor movement, and the many workers whose names we will never know but whose sacrifices made our lives better.
Then, let’s redouble our efforts to live up to the best of what they believed was possible.
Independence isn’t just something we declare. It’s something we build.