A Labor Day Message from NYC CLC President Vincent Alvarez

As this "summer of strikes" gives way to autumn, we’re all by now familiar with the existential fight that our City’s striking writers and actors are facing. They want what every worker wants: stability for their families and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Their bosses have responded by stripping them of the residuals that pay the rent between jobs, and trying to claim ownership of their words and likenesses through AI.

But entertainment workers aren’t the only ones who’ve been in the streets defending their crafts and livelihoods — more than 50,000 New Yorkers have engaged in job actions over the past year. Healthcare, media, retail, legal, cultural, manufacturing and other workers are standing up to say that enough is enough. Even now, 20,000 building service workers who made it possible for offices to reopen safely are ready to fight for a contract that reflects the value of their work and defends the standards they’ve already achieved.

Today, workers are taking matters into their own hands. And what ties all these fights together is an unprecedented wave of solidarity — workers on the picket lines have been joined by members of every unionized industry in our City, all standing together to show the bosses that when you take one of us on, you take all of us on.

We also know that approval for unions is at a nearly 60 year high, and that 60 million workers would join a union today if they could. And new polling released this week shows that Americans overwhelmingly favor workers in labor disputes, and an unprecedented number of young Americans, nearly 9 in 10, view unions favorably.

This Labor Day, our striking union siblings will take a break and enjoy a well-deserved day of rest with family and loved ones. But when the morning comes, they’ll be back out on our City’s sidewalks, fighting on behalf of all working people. Let’s make sure to get out there and help them hold the line.

We hope, too, that you'll join us at the Labor Day Parade on Saturday, September 9th on Fifth Avenue to declare loudly as one movement that when "We Organize, We Rise." On behalf of all of us at the NYC CLC, have a safe, healthy, and enjoyable Labor Day Weekend.